Best Friends FOREVER

On the last day of third grade, my best friend Jessica came over to play. We never wanted the afternoon to end because we knew that she was moving to Minnesota and this was our last chance to see each other for a very long time. I remember sobbing when we had to drop her off at her house. My granny had to pull me back into my seat as we drove away because I was pressing my face against the back window to make my last glimpse of Jessica last a few seconds longer. It was a very dramatic scene, I know, but when you're ten, everything is dramatic. At least, that was my experience.

We wrote letters to each other often, and I saved every single thing she sent me. Cleaning out old boxes in my parents garage, I ran across my BFF binder with drawings and letters from Jess. It brought back fond memories of my best friend, though we had sadly lost touch over the years. Our letters became less and less frequent to one another until we finally stopped writing. There was no fallout, just middle school keeping us occupied in the places we were rather than writing letters to someone across the country.

I've had a lot of good friends fade out of my life in different ways, and sometimes I wonder if I'm just terrible at maintaining friendships. One of my greatest fears in leaving the States is leaving behind the few good friends I do have to go to a place where I have no friends. I know that I'll be able to meet new people and establish great relationships in Germany, but it's hard to think that I'll be starting from scratch and working to maintain the friendships I have back in the States. I'd just begun to process this and articulate this fear in the last week or so, but I should have realized that the Lord had already worked out a solution to my imaginary problem.

I just got off the phone with my best friend Jessica who has been living in Germany for the last four years; she's just two hours away from where I'll be living.

Half an hour before our phone call, I accidentally clicked on the "other" tab in my Facebook messages. (Did you know there was an "other" tab on Facebook messages? What the heck, Facebook?) There I found a short note Jess had sent me two years ago. I replied quickly with a short update that I was moving to Germany soon, and within minutes she replied back asking for my phone number. I noticed that the reply was sent from a mobile device in a city with a German name.

Needless to say, I replied with my phone number and was talking to Jess in minutes. Clearly our conversation wasn't just like when we were ten - I think we spent a lot of time talking about ponies then - but it was so natural to be on the phone with my best friend. I'm even more excited for my move now because when I'm saddened by the thought of leaving people in two months, I can remember that I get to see my best friend from the third grade in two months.