Its not very often one can find and maintain a lifetime friend. Sometimes people grow apart because life happens and things get busy; people get left behind. Friendships are work…some more work than others - you know the kind ;) I have been blessed to have the kind of friend that through all of life’s changes, through the distance of an entire country and through one of us not ever answering their phone ;) we have remained close.
My best friend Deanna and I have been friends since kindergarten. I still have our class picture from back then and it always makes me smile that we have known each other for so long. Its fun to be in someone’s life for a whole lifetime. In the 1st grade we lived just a street down from each other so our families carpooled a lot and I still remember Mr. Baker picking Josh, Deanna and myself up in his yellow car.
Through our childhood years we weren’t best friends - we each had our own separate childhood “bests” but were in the same group of friends and attended the same school from kindergarten until the 8th grade. Crazy how many shared memories can weld people to each other.
As we got into high school, circumstances and choices took us out of our circle of friends and our little Christian school bubble and we both attended large high schools - on separate sides of the city. Though our the schools we chose were enormously different, we had similar situations going on in each other’s lives and we knew that we had one another to rely on and go too. I’m pretty certain, had we not gone to the schools we did and lived our separate high school’s together, we wouldn’t be as close today as we are.
Within the first year or two after high school, Deanna married her husband Stuart and eventually moved to Seattle…which is around the time that my dad got the job at Liberty and we moved to Virginia: complete opposite sides of the country…too far away.
Through many phone calls, emails, letters, packages, occasional visits, we have remained close and I consider it a blessing that we have. I’m surprised sometimes at how much she puts up with me and my bad habit of not answering my phone. Deanna is such a beautiful woman - inside and out. She has four beautiful children and is a wonderful mother! I always like picking her brain about motherhood and how she makes it look so easy. She is one of the most down to earth, level headed people I know. I love everything about her and her family.
It makes me sad that we don’t live closer. I hate that I don’t get to be a part of her day to day life. I look at people around me who have their best friend living in the same city (or neighborhood)…or even in the same state, and I must admit, I get envious. I long to live in the same place as Deanna and raise our kids together…or even just have our kids know each other.
I’m very grateful to both Stuart and Matt who, through their own various sacrifices, have allowed Deanna and I to see one another through the years. Lately we’ve managed to do visits annually…its been wonderful! Earlier this year I started saving all my pennies and began selling anything I could think of that I didn’t need. Through many months of saving, yard sales, craigs list and gift money, I was able to put aside enough to finally get my ticket to go see Deanna and her family out in Seattle. It also happens to fall right over my birthday, which means I get to spend my 30th (that hurts to say) birthday with Deanna - its been years since that has happened.
I’m so excited to spend the week with her and cherish the day to day moments that we often miss out on.
