How Many?

I had lunch with a dear friend today, in a rare moment when the life of a nanny/mother of four and a 3rd year law student with two jobs and a marriage of his own intersect.

I was telling the kids about my afternoon, and Miss E wondered how I knew him. I explained that we'd met in high school... in September of 1991.

E said, "Wow, that's a really long time ago."
I said, "Yeah, seventeen years."

Seventeen years?

After that, I just laid my head on the dinner table and was simultaneously very grateful for friendships that survive that long, and mourning my now hopelessly lost youth.