B.F.F.

Back in the day, before there was texting and tweeting and facebooking, social life looked a little different. When I was a pre-teen and teenager, we did something that is practically unthinkable to teens these days. We wrote notes to each other. With a pencil and paper. And our own handwriting. And a "short" note was one page long. And since this was before text talk, words were not abbreviated.

Except for one little phrase at the end...

B.F.F!!! 

(or occasionally to switch things up, B.F.F.L!!!)

Any girl who was a teenager in the 80s or 90s knows exactly what that means.

(To help the rest of you out: Best Friends Forever or Best Friends For Life)

Any decent note passed to your girlfriends included this ending. (I'm pretty sure that boys didn't write notes. At least not to each other. I'm not really sure though. I was too busy writing notes about boys to pay attention to what they were doing.)

Obviously, looking back, it makes me laugh. It's such a naive and immature concept. But we believed it. Just like we believed we were invincible, our clothes looked awesome, and the fair was the highlight of summer. (What?! Your entire town didn't show up for the local fair? Okay, so maybe that was a small town thing.)

Real life doesn't exactly work that way. People grow up. Graduate. Move. Change. Marry. Change some more. 

Life moves on- with or without our 7th grade best friends by our sides. (Or college roomates, or summer camp best bud, or you-fill-in-the-blank.)

But every once in awhile, those silly little promises have rung true in my life. 

There is a handful of people in my life, who despite graduations, moves, marriages, divorces, babies, and lots of changes, are still just there.

And isn't that half of what makes a great friendship, great?

Just being there.

Through the good. The bad. The ugly. (Whistling...)

Mostly, through time.

I talked to several of them on the phone the last few months.

I watched one get married last month. 

I got to meet with one of them last week.

So to all of you who have been there for me, with me, through the years-

Thank you.

I love you.

And yes,

B.F.F!!!