It’s been my experience thus far in life that we become very different people, from whom we are as young adults, as we experience the ups and downs of life.  Depending on the length, breadth and depth of our highs and lows, we are transformed differently than most would expect or anticipate when they watched us grow through our teen years into an adult.  Yet, there is still a core of our identities that exists no matter the ways we have been affected by the weight of living. (Bastille song, one of my favorites)

When I have an opportunity to meet with my childhood and teen friends, I jump at the chance.  There is something that comes to life in me when I’m with them that I can’t quite explain.  It feels like a spark of the real me, the one who existed before the weight of living changed me.  I feel loved and accepted as who I am in that core of my identity, though these friends don’t really even know me as I am today.  They see me as I was and who life has shaped me to be doesn’t even impact their expressions of welcome and acceptance, and my feelings towards them are mutual.

Yet, life has changed each of us, some for the better, others for the worse.  A part of me laments each time I see these old friends because I long to know them as who they are today, in the depths of their beings.  Time doesn’t seem to allow this, though, since we all have our “real” lives calling us back in a rush.  How good it would be to linger lazily over a cup of coffee or glass of wine and truly share with one another….