old friends, still friends

It's been a good month to see some "old" girlfriends (and I am realizing, we are certainly getting older!) both during our recent trip home to BC and also Robyn's quick visit out here to the prairies just this past weekend. I've been friends with all these girls since 1990/1993 (and Brenda's sister Cheryl too, but I didn't have a "just her" photo this time) and I love seeing them all and feeling as though no time has passed. Really, no time at all. Joy, Lorna and I (they're sisters!) took time for a 24 hour getaway while I was on the Island last month ... no kids, no cooking, no responsibilities. And it was perfection. Eating out, staying out, reading the whole afternoon away along the oceanside promenade, going out for a late night chick flick and an even later dinner, shopping, and having lots of time to talk and catch up. I'm quite certain this needs to be a yearly event! Brenda and Cheryl are in the Calgary area and so we met them and their families for breakfast on our way home ... they are old friends of both Sam and I and so visits with them are always fun and full of lots to say and tell and remember and laugh over. And Robyn? ... well, we met as roommates at school in Austria when we were both 18 and later spent a year in Europe together, traveling for 4 months and then working in Amsterdam ... so needless to say, we know each other pretty darn well! She's off for another year of traveling adventures so she "stopped in" for a quick visit this weekend before her departure date and I'm so glad she did.

I miss my "old friends", my "home friends" and yet we stay in touch easily now online and over the phone ... no one is ever really that far away. And I'm so thankful that I've made a group of girlfriends here, ones that I can start to make memories with now. Still it's hard and it's a slow process but I'm determined and I know that life is so much richer with those new and old friends around you.