Old friends

I spent the morning catching up with a friend who has known me since I was 17. She's seen my at my best and at my worst. She talked me through the ups and downs of college life. She stood beside me at my wedding. And though we hadn't seen each other in a few years, it didn't take more than five minutes to feel as if we were just picking up where we'd left off the last time we met.

And that's the blessing of old friends -- friends who knew us when and, amazingly, still want to keep in touch.

My friend has lived a life committed to making a difference in the lives of others. I could tell you that, as we chatted in a diner for more than three hours, I kept thinking she looked the same despite the 45 years that have passed since we last sat on her bed in her college dorm room and talked late into the night. But what mattered more, matters more, is realizing that she still lives a committed life.

We were such idealists in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The corners of my own idealism have been rounded off by time and the realities of grown-up life, but hers still shines. I'm lucky that she still counts me among her friends.