My friend Joy and I met when we were 12 years old. We were assigned as roommates for our 6th/7th grade boarding school term. We were pretty nervous. It was a big moment in our lives to move away from our parents and live at boarding school.
We were fast friends (with our own share of drama, I’m sure). We stayed up late at night, giggling. I remember we even put all our clothes in the same dresser and shared our entire wardrobes. We also “borrowed” our older dorm sisters razors and learned how to shave together. There were a few years when our respective families were on furlough that we weren’t together as much, but then we were roommates again when we were in 9th/10th grade. That was an incredibly formidable year for both of us, and we stayed up way too late every night talking through life, boys, future plans, friend and boyfriend drama, and everything.
Joy & Suz at pool 
Suz and Joy wear bra
The end of that year, my Dad and I had the privilege of flying to Joy’s hometown, Timbuktu. Yes, THAT Timbuktu. Joy’s family lived there for many, many years and I finally was able to visit Joy there. That was a super fun trip!
As we both grew up and graduated from high school, we still kept in touch. It is the kind of friendship where we don’t need to talk every day to be able to pick right back up where we left off. We visited each other a few times throughout our college years, and met our respective significant others. We stood in each other’s weddings and she even told me she was pregnant with her first when I was pregnant with my first. We visited each other whenever we could and had a couple opportunities to get together throughout the years.
We haven’t seen each other in years and really wanted to get together this summer. Unfortunately, our husbands just weren’t able to take off work and we both felt intimidated about driving the full way with our 3 small children (each). So we decided to just meet in the middle and leave our husbands at home!
I picked an Airbnb, and in hindsight…it wasn’t a great decision. For one– Joy had to drive way further than I did, even though the whole idea was to meet halfway. And the other major problem was that it was REALLY far out in the boondocks. Which was nerve wracking with a lot of small children! Ezra got carsick on the way there and I was feeling pretty frazzled by the time we arrived. We picked a farm with land so that the kids could run around and play while we chatted. We basically stayed in the house and yard for the two days we were there. We brought our own food and each took a turn cooking a main meal. We doled out snacks and kissed boo-boos and ran kids to the potty. Our kids were shy and hesitant at first and didn’t want to play together, but as time went on, they started to come up with games that involved everyone and by the second day they were playing together outside non-stop. We got to do some chores with the farmer and they kids loved that!
It was such a wonderful time catching up with one of my longest friends.
The plan now is to not let so much time go by before we see each other again!