One of life’s amazing quirks to me is the rubber band of old friends. Case in point: a recent dinner with college friends of ours who  lived in LA for a few years but have since returned to the East Coast. We’ve gone from seeing them every one to two months to seeing them just a couple of times a year — and from the comfort of having them just 15 minutes away (like everything is in LA) to 3000 miles between us. From having them be our “go-to people” to having them be people we have to get on a plane to go to. But just like that rubber band, this old friendship (like the best ones, I guess) manages to stretch, stretch, and not snap. No, we can’t share take-out Chinese on a regular basis and no, we can’t observe their sons grow up (height-wise and life-wise) with regularity, but we can revel in the fact that our shared history will never fail us. That despite (somewhat) receding hairlines or (somewhat) increasing waistlines, that same humor, warmth, respect, and love that has kept us together for so long and has had us laughing at each other’s jokes for decades is just as vibrant as ever. And that’s something that never grows old.

© 2012 Claudia Grossman