No Teen Time in November

I'm goin' to TEXAS! I'm goin' to TEXAS! I'm goin' to TEXAS!

San Antonio, to be specific. My best friend (since High School, mind you) lives there and we are going to have a girls' week! My family is staying behind to hold the fort, and I am going to spend time with Tracy, whom I haven't seen in SIX YEARS!!

Think about that my friends. Where were you six years ago? Some of you were in first grade, maybe Kindergarten. I hadn't even started working at the library yet! Now, Tracy and I have been friends since the summer of 1984, which if you do the math was twenty-six (26) years ago. During those twenty-six years, we (both of us Army brats, then she married Air Force) have lived in the same town for only 11 months, the same state for only 25 months (that's including the 11 months in the same town). The rest of the time? Never less than 1,100 miles. At its peak, the distance between us was over 2,000 miles. That was when she and her family left South Carolina for an Air Force posting in MONTANA.

Before the days of unlimited long-distance calling, we used to get into so much trouble over phone bills! Some things were just too urgent to wait for the mail, and e-mail was just not even in the picture in the early days of our friendship. And we're both talkers. I mean... TALKERS.

All of this by way of saying: Don't let time and distance separate you from your real friends. You know what I mean. The friends to whom you can say absolutely anything. The friends with whom you can sit in silence and not be worried about why nobody's saying anything. The friends you argue with, but always come back to because you help each other in ways you can't articulate.

Your BEST friends.