Going through my 20's and not growing apart from my best friend.

Best friends are hard to come by these days. You don’t always find that person and say, hey yeah I am not leaving your side for the rest of our lives and we are gonna do stupid shit together until we get old okay? I actually never had a “best friend” until I got older. I was always awkward and weird and though I had people I called a friend, I never had a constant one, they always came and went because I am the kind of person who sometimes doesn’t want to be around people but not a lot of people understand that. In my 20’s its been harder, and people come and go, my list of actual friends are shorter now, and as I am getting closer to my wedding its starting to be clear who actually wants to be in my life and who doesn’t. And it makes me glad that in the whole scheme of things, I have someone to call my best friend.

Now the word best friend is different in your later 20’s than when you are a teenager or even up to that  Taylor Swift age of 22. When people grow up, get married and have kids things change. You don’t see each other randomly when you are bored at 10pm at night and want to grab ihop. Sometimes we go weeks, or even months with out seeing each other because our work lives don’t mesh up, or the one time we had planned to hang out, a baby is sick. You have to be more understanding as an adult than you were when you were 19. So its harder to keep people in your lives, and to make sure the people you have around you are there for you even if you can’t see them everyday. And for me that’s Lyndsey.

See Lynndsey always in some way understood me, we always understood each others. I get her in a way a lot of people don’t, and she does the same for me. When we were in our early 20’s we were content hanging out, at her apartment on our laptops watching re-runs of SVU and Gilmore Girls for a whole day, than going out and hanging out with tons of people. As we got older, its sort of the same, expect now our spouses are with us, and theres a toddler running around, and it’s a hockey game or mickey mouse club house playing in the background. We know that we don’t always HAVE to be doing something amazing together to be friends. Sure we have a lot of great memories, of doing some fun and silly things, but that’s not all our friendship is about.

 If you look at us we are total opposites in many ways,  and I think that works out in our favor. When something is wrong she doesn’t have to say it and I know what to do, and vice versa. But the way we keep this friendship working isn’t by seeing each other every second of every day and taking best friend selfies all the time. We talk, we listen, we tell each other about our stupid boring days,  I get the cutest videos of what her daughter (my goddaughter) is doing that day, and I will send her silly memes and pictures of a project I am working on. We stay updated on each others lives, even if its not the most exciting. We help each other deal with drama, and other issues, We listen to work rants, and stories about baby poop, and things we never thought we would share with each other. Her family has become my family in a way that when I am at her home, I feel at home, even if I am not there all the time because hey being an adult and working sucks but you got to do it. We may not see each other all the time, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t my best friend.

I will admit when she first told me she was pregnant 2.5 years ago I was really scared. I was scared I would lose her because she was going to be caught up in this baby life and forget all about me. But she never did that. I didn’t think I could love a kid as much as I love her daughter. If anything her having a child has brought us closer. And seeing her be an amazing mom has made me realize how lucky I am to have her in my life,  seeing her raise this little person who is a little her, it no longer makes me scared that this little person is gonna steal my best friend away, I love them both, and sometimes her  more than Lyndsey (haha.) I know that sI may not understand a lot of what shes going through as a mom like her friends with kids, but I do know she understands the fact I MAY not want kids, and may never understand and she gets that, doesn’t judge me.

In our 20’s we have gone through tons of changes, some good, some bad, Some life changing and some tiny but awesome at the same time. We fought, and we sometimes went long periods of times with out speaking, but in the end honestly? Maintaining a friendship with some one through all the changes in your life is hard, you don’t know what each change will bring, but its nice and amazing to share it with someone who has been there through them all.  You just have to know and understand that growing up, getting married, having kids doesn’t mean you drift apart. We are on some what different paths in life, but that doesn’t mean we can’t live them together.

I think Ted Mosby said it best in the last season of HIMYM "You will be shocked kids, when you discover how easy it is in life to part ways with people forever. That's why, when you find someone you want to keep around, you do something about it."