Today I got a letter from my friend Sarah Ruth. She and I have been friends since we were 4 years old. That means we have been friends for two decades people. When I saw her name on the return address I quickly tore into the envelope just dying to see what it held. I was reading along and there it was: "I wanted to let you know that I'm getting married this summer..." I was beyond thrilled. Sarah is amazing girl and I have been dying to find out what lucky guy would snag her. At the end of the email, she gave me a website for the wedding. I of course promptly checked it.
That's when it hit me. Sarah Ruth was getting married. I scrolled through the pictures of her fiance looking at her adoringly, of Sarah looking so beautiful and happy and my eyes teared up. There she was, my best friend through those endless years of childhood that have now ended. We are no longer 12. We no longer watch Anne of Green Gables 40 times a month. We don't play house. We can't ask her parents if we can please stay up a little longer. We are women. It made me feel so old. Not in the normal way. Not in the "man I am ancient" way but in the harsh realization that childhood is done. Sarah represented all that is childhood to me - making up games together, impromptu slumber parties, getting in silly fights, all those glorious things of friendship in those early years.
I am so very happy for this friend and I would want nothing more than the perfect romance I saw flashing before me, but I just wish we could go back once and again, you know? Go back to when the biggest care we had was how to convince her little sister Bekah to not play with us or begging her mom not to put half the amount of sugar in the koolaid pitcher. I don't know. I guess when I saw Sarah looking so grown up and beautiful and in love, I realized that childhood is over. I know this is incredibly silly. I mean, I have been married for almost 7 years, I have a 4 year old and a baby on the way, and I am a teacher. I have been "grown up" for quite some time. But seeing your best friend all grown up smiling at the love of her life is different. It means we are all growing up. And there isn't any going back.
Until I see my son. His childhood is just beginning and I get to experience that with him. I get to be the mom who puts half the sugar in the koolaid jar or who lets him have a friend over on a school night. I get to watch him make up games with his friends and learn what a best friend really is. It's not the same but it's just as great.
I am a grown up. I may make up games with Mason and I might still watch Anne of Green Gables enough to have it memorized, but it won't ever be the same as it was. I will never again be the lanky 12 year old who did cart wheels in the living room or giggled for hours about the latest Baby Sitter club book. I miss childhood. I do. I miss its innocence, the carefreeness of it, the perfection of a summer afternoon spent with a good friend. But it's still there. The innocence, the carefreeness, the perfect summer day still happens just in different ways, with different friends like my husband, my son and my other "grown up" friends.
To Sarah,
I love you - for the memories, the laughs, and the friendship that taught me what friendship meant. I am so very happy for you and Michael and I pray your life be filled with carefree hours, the innocence of love and a million perfect summer days even in the dead of winter. Congratulations!
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