Yesterday I spent the afternoon with a high school friend - a friend I hadn't seen in five years, and only three times in the last twenty five. She looked great, and I might've allowed myself to believe that our being forty-plus was an illusion. She still has the same bright eyes, hearty laugh, and big, toothy smile of the teenager who spent many a sleepover on the shag carpet in my butterfly-wallpapered room. Best of buddies from seventh grade forward, we managed to stay out of trouble in spite of our best efforts to find it. We crushed the same junior high boys, Yankee players, and then approaching middle-age Beatles, Paul for her and George for me. Friends through Confirmation and Sweet Sixteen, we thought we were there through the major milestones of our lives. High school came and I evolved into the drama queen, she the band geek, and we found other partners-in crime. With the college years we got busy discovering ourselves, then our spouses, and then our kids. Years gone by, thousands of miles apart and yet we sat across her kitchen table yesterday, dishing the dirt as if the time hadn't passed.

Rare it is in life to find a friend like that, and I've been fortunate to have that happen again and again. First, I found my honeymooning kindergarten buddy, still the crazy West Coast friend who is too many time zones away. Then we junior high buds helped each other through the awkward development of body and soul. In college I found a friend who still keeps in touch long after the late night bagel orders and toga parties. Now I can count the friends of adulthood who give me the gift of their time not as teachers or as mothers or as wives, but as friends who can spend a lazy afternoon dishing the dirt across a kitchen table.