Getting Together

My friend Julie and I see each other one day a year.  We live only a couple of hours apart, but life has a way of preventing us from getting together more than once annually.  Today was that day when we met halfway and spent hours catching up on life, sharing gossip and eating foods in which we normally wouldn't indulge.  It's a brief getaway, yet it always feels like a vacation made with a special friend.  Julie and I have known each other for 30 years.  Yet, when we get together, the decades melt away and we are young women again, finding our way in the work world and trying to figure out how our adult lives will take shape.  But 30 years have passed.  We've married, our parents have passed away, we've changed jobs a few times and we've seen some of the good, the bad, the difficult and the indifferent about life.  Although we only get together once a year, that once-a-year get-together means more to me that perhaps Julie will ever know.