Ok, I’m not old.
Sometimes I joke that I am, especially since yesterday morning, after running that 5k on Saturday, I could barely get out of bed.
Sometimes I look like I am, especially since, at the age of 33, I have the beginnings of crow’s feet and gray hair. Thank you, God, for makeup and a fabulous hair stylist.
When I think of old…I think of things that have lasted a long time.
Like my church, Immanuel Lutheran . It’s been around for 150 years, and I think that’s rich. Th is h
istory, the legacy that place has is phenomenal. We’re thankful and blessed to be part of it.
And like the Volkswagen Beetle. I really? Want a classic.
If I’m lucky…in my lifetime, I may get the new one.
A convertible would be even better… but man, it would be fun to drive the old one.
Can’t you just see me cruisin’ C’ville in a classic, orange Beetle?!
I can. 😀
But I guess when I think of old…I think of people who have been in my life for so long.
My lifelong best friends…Missy and Becky.
Neither of them are old…but our friendship is as old as it can get for the ages we are. 
Missy came to see me in the hospital the day I was born.
(She was 8 months old.) Becky (her sister) came along 14 months later.
The three of us grew up together…there are few memories I have of life as a kid that don’t involve them.
As we grew up…we became very, very different people, but we always managed to find that common ground and keep a friendship going despite challenges.
Missy married young. She has a beautiful, amazing family of eight.
Becky married two years later and has three beautiful boys and a pretty great husband. (He was a college friend of mine, so I can say that. :)) I got married the next year, but having Maelie took us awhile, and so there were many, many years when my two best friends had lots of kids, and I didn’t have any.
Missy stayed in Iowa, Becky lived in Michigan and Wisconsin before returning to Iowa this past year, and well…you know my story. 😉 Visits with them for five years were very sporadic and it often felt like eons passed between the times we could catch up.
We managed to stay friends, anyway…I guess because our friendship is just that rock solid.
Life has taken us separate ways, but we always seem to find our way back.
We still laugh at the same things…like (very off-key) singing competitions around their piano…picture three young girls scream-singing at the top of their lungs; games of hide the tape recorder; listening to old tapes of sounds we made and laughing so hard we nearly wet our pants…that’s mostly because I tried to sound like lightening, and well…I never should have done that. They also should have never recorded it!!!
We still remember things, too…like the day Missy almost drowned and how God truly intervened that day. It tears me apart to even think of how my life would have been vastly different without her. Like the years I decided God wasn’t for me…and how they never gave up on me and loved me through some ugly, ugly years. Like singing together on my wedding day…when our voices had grown up and found that thing called pitch.
It’s a beautiful friendship, one that has stood the test of time.
I love these two and the lifetime of memories we hold.
I am so,
so thankful for friendship.
I am so, so thankful for the two sisters I never had.
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