After our first year together, Chris and I have stopped “celebrating” Valentine’s Day. I still make him a card every year, but other than that, we typically don’t do anything special on that day. And a few days over the last several years, one of us has had work travel. This year, he’s away, so I ended up having a dinner of hand-pulled noodles tonight with my good friend instead.

My friend and I have been friends for 20 years, since we were both 11. Whenever I see her, I’m always excited to hang out. Nothing is ever scripted, sometimes things aren’t even fully planned, and I never have to think about topics to discuss. That’s the greatest thing about having a friend in your life that long: once you reach a certain level of comfort, you can feel free to literally shoot the shit, or really not talk about anything at all, and you will still have fun and enjoy each others’ company. We don’t talk about work or “popular topics” that people discuss; we just discuss whatever is on our minds. It’s like the way our minds work; we flow from one topic to another, even when the initial topic had nothing to do with the next.

Friendships like these are the reason it seems so exhausting to meet new people and start at square one again.