I’m sitting in an airport listening to an old Aerosmith song while drinking a glass of wine and getting excited to be reunited with two of my oldest and dearest friends, in Austin Texas.  One of us lives “back east” again, I’m now on the west coast in Washington state and the third now lives in Texas – which is kind of in the middle as far as meet-up spots go.  I just found out that our friend coming from Boston has been delayed a bit, but that shouldn’t slow us down too much.  We have a food tour and some wine tasting to do and we’re flexible.

The three of us have been friends for close to 50 years – yikes, those years seemed to have just jetted by!!  Two of us grew up in New England and the third joined us from Minnesota in the early ’70s.  We went to Jr. High and High School together and then we all separated to different colleges and promised that we’d stay in touch – and we did.

We’ve stayed in touch through college, moving out of state, numerous jobs, getting married, having kids and just growing up.  Back in the day, it was harder to stay in touch, you had to write a letter, I mean a handwritten letter – and then find a stamp and envelope and mail it – lol.  Or, you called on a landline and hoped that person was actually home – before voicemail was an option.  When we were Juniors in high school, my family moved to England for the year, that was exciting and frightening at the same time!!  Having grown up in the same town with the same friends for most of my life, I now had to start over.  Calling wasn’t an option, as we didn’t have a phone in our rented home and it would have been crazy expensive, so we wrote letters – long letters, and we also recorded cassette tapes and sent them back and forth.  I’ve got to say that this constant contact with my friends, kept me going!!

The year that we were all turning 40, we got together for an extended fun weekend in Calistoga, CA – actually, there were 4 of us on that trip, 2 living in California at the time, so it was an easy get together.  We rented a house with one bathroom – now that’s friendship – and ate, drank, shopped and laughed for days 🙂  We promised to do it again before we were 50 and one of us is now 60 – life just gets in the way sometimes.

Fast forward to post trip…

The Austin Eats Sunday brunch food tour was fantastic!!  When I visited the area a few years ago, we had reservations for a walking food tour in Austin on my last day, but that morning the weather turned and our tour was canceled.  To avoid that happening again, my friend booked a bus tour this time.  The small bus worked out really well because it allowed us to see more places outside of the downtown area and if it had rained, we wouldn’t get soaked.  The tour guide took us to 5 completely different food venues in addition to starting out the tour with mimosas and mini coffee cake bites on the bus – what a great way to spend a Sunday morning with friends.

We also visited some local Texas wineries, drive around the countryside, shopped a bit, shared photos and just caught up.  I was “forced” to watch “Game of Thrones” one evening as everyone I was with had been watching the show for years.  Having only seen a few episodes with other people a few times, this meant nothing to me, but because this was the last season and super exciting for my friends, I endured the show – although I still don’t get the hype – lol, but it was time spent with friends.

I know that people say that even though you haven’t seen a friend in a long time when you finally meet again it’s as though no time has passed – and that’s so true!!  Even though we have all lived very different lives in different states over the years, some things just don’t change, like our friendship for one another.  I’m not sure if it’s a testament to our commitment to remain in touch over the years or the fact that we picked great friends from the start – maybe a bit of both, but 50 years is a lot of sharing!

We said our goodbyes and promised to get together again sometime soon.  I hope it isn’t another 20 years, like last time we promised this because that would put us at 80.  So until then, we’ll continue to “see” each other on our social media platforms until we pick a new spot for another mini reunion…