20 years

I met my friend Andrea, what seems like a lifetime ago, when she moved to my hometown, to live with her mom and her younger brother. We actually met thru work, -we'd both just started working for Longs Drugs Store. Aside from being the 'newbies' at work together, we found we had lots in common and quickly became friends, hanging out, partying, doing all the stooopid stuff 19 year old girls do. We made tons of roadtrips back to her hometown, where I met her friends and before long, I felt just like one of the gang. Over the next couple years, she and I were more or less joined at the hip. We supported eachother thru breakups with boyfriends, family drama -everything.
It wasn't too long after she moved back to her hometown, and I was just getting over some major boyfriend drama, -feeling depressed and wanting to shake my life up a bit, -that she convinced me that I should up and move too. She told me about one of her old friends who needed a room mate... and so it went.

Just two days after my 21st birthday, I packed up my Pop's suburban, piled stuff in a trailer, filled up my little honda and hit the road. 300 miles and about 6 hours later I was here. I stepped inside the shabby old house I'd be sharing with my new room mate, Tim (whom I'd already met and loved like a brother ...still do, in fact!) and he introduced me to his friend Jack.... A year and a half later Jack and I got married and the rest, as they say, is history.

Here we are, 20 years to the day from when I moved here and Jack and I first met... -we've been married now for 18 and a half years, have 3 beautiful kidlets, and amazingly, even with all the ups and downs we've gone through, we've managed to keep it together pretty well. I can't wait to see what the next 20 years brings -I just hope they don't go by so fast!

Andrea and I have long since fallen out of touch. She moved back to my hometown, got married and I haven't heard from her in years. ...it's strange how things work out sometimes.