Today is my friend Sarah’s birthday.

Therefore I’d like to take the opportunity to tell you all that she’s pretty darn cool.

How cool? So cool that we have managed to remain friends for twenty three years.  Twenty three years that have not always been easy years to keep a friendship going, but we have.  Over the years the obstacles have changed but we’ve still manged to be there for each other the whole way through.

In second grade Sarah moved to Pewaukee and ended up in my class. It didn’t take long before we became friends and up until fourth grade life was easy. Our main challenge to overcome was whether or not Sarah had vacuumed yet  and if she was grounded or not. Sarah was grounded a lot.  For a girl that seemed pretty good, she must have been a terror behind closed doors.

In fourth grade she and another friend decided they hated me. You would think this was a large obstacle, but due to a fortuitous combination of my being stubborn, unable to take a hint, and my lack of other friends, I hung in there and we came out the other end friends again.

From fourth grade on to high school my swimming schedule threw a monkey wrench in things. Swimming a half hour away from home every night, plus practice and/or meets on weekends kept me busy in the pool.  Fortunately Sarah still had a lot of vacuuming (amongst other activities) to keep her busy and we manged to stay fast friends.

Then things got tricky. In the summer between sophomore and junior year of high school Sarah and her family moved to Canada. Many tears later, chat rooms were discovered and we spent hours keeping in touch while jumping around rooms to avoid anyone who might intrude on our conversations. I attribute my typing speed and abilities completely to those years, unfortunately for my spelling,  Sarah was a champ at  figuring out my interesting words. To this day it’s a good thing that I have spell check, and a husband to tell my how to spell obstacle when all spell check can come up with for my typed word is obstetrics.

Sarah moved back to Wisconsin in college and joined me at UW-Stevens Point – it was a good time.  We lived together for two straight years with only one spat the entire time (don’t move my bed, it turns out I hate that) and had more fun than is prudent to mention on a blog my family reads. By the end of college we were closer than ever and husbands were on the way.

Turns out husbands are no big deal. They are understanding of our friendship, get along great and suddenly we had four people for card games. If ever we needed some girl time we could always easily get rid of the boys by waving a video game in front of them.

Not too long after the husbands became official we each had a kid and only two months apart we pretty much entered into motherhood together.  While it was harder to chat and visit with two kids around other than one very memorable and exhausting trip where Ivy learned that if she yelled “MINE” it would cause Natalie to freak out, they have gotten along remarkably well.

But, now there are more, our second kids are four months apart, and Sarah’s third trails them by a bit over a year. Now when we get together our weekend seems to consist solely of feeding kids, breaking up fights,  putting them to sleep, and waiting for them to wake back up while trying not to drown in a sea of toys.  Once this summer someone asked when we were all visiting together if Sarah and I had fun… Umm yeah… Wait was Sarah there? Yeah I think we had fun, I don’t know I have to call her later and talk so I can find out…

Things aren’t as easy as they used to be.  I continue to have trouble getting away from the animals in the summer while Sarah works during the school year.  We may spend quite a bit more time wondering if the weekend we just spent together was “fun” or exhausting and as the kids grow we will continue to cross our fingers they’ll remain friends, or at least friendly. In the meantime we’ll continue to have phone conversations squashed in between the rest of life, and be thankful for free mobile to mobile minutes.

While I’m always sad when we can’t spend a birthday or other important event together, it’s good to be able to look back at a lifetime of friendship and know that this challenging time will also pass.  Lately we’ve been talking of a husband-less/kid-less trip when we turn forty.  And who knows, one day we’ll probably end up sharing a room at an old folks home.  One day we’ll be celebrating our birthdays together again even if we are no longer sure how old we are!

Happy Birthday Sarah!