Catching Up With Long-Lost Friends

My dear friend Anna came to visit me this week, and it was amazing, relaxing, and much-needed. We've been friends since we were fourteen, but she lives in Korea, so I hardly EVER get to actually see her in person, and our preferred mode of keeping in touch consists of insanely long emails peppered with the occasional Skype conversation. But this was the first time we've ever gotten together on our own turf instead of at our parents' houses when we meet up in NC, which is what normally happens. I got to show her everything about my day-to-day real adult life, and gave her a tour of the law school, and took her to my favorite restaurants. We went thrift store shopping all over Atlanta and talked for hours and hours about everything. Belying the fact that we are both 24 and not 5, we made an awesome fort in my living room out of my couches and a bunch of blankets, got inside, and watched a bunch of scary movies, talked, and laughed until we almost wet our pants, because sometimes you just need to be a kid again. We cooked meatballs with savory raspberry sauce and bacon-wrapped dates stuffed with goat cheese and sea salt brownie bites. We talked about relationships and fashion and goals and the legal system and marriage and school and work and health and spiritual stuff and a million other things. We made "25 things to accomplish before turning 25" lists while eating lunch at IKEA and talked about how desperately we want to lead meaningful lives and make a difference in the world and have our day-to-day existence be about something more than just ourselves.

And, as always, I am so inspired after being with her. I'm inspired about the big stuff, like finding a great job and being responsible with money and traveling and praying more, and about the little stuff, like cooking healthy food every day and washing my dishes as soon as they are dirty and getting to the gym more often. I miss her already because I know it will probably be many months before we see each other again. Next time we see each other, if all goes as planned, I won't be a law student. I will be an attorney. And I envision that we'll be these super-sophisticated adults swapping career advice over margaritas, but maybe that's just my imagination!

So immensely grateful for friendships that can be 10 years old and still going strong!