Luck

Luck is standing in a line at high school orientation in front of the mom you had toured a different high school alongside. She recognizes you and introduces you to her daughter, who had been sick that tour day. You sit together and find each other again on the first day of school. You take classes together, spend weekends at each other’s houses, plan and save and ultimately go to Paris together with your moms.

Luck is going to a pre-high school party at a friend from summer camp’s house who brought together her friends from grade school and summer camp and meeting people that you then recognize on the first day of school. A group of friends coalesces that quickly loses the original dividing lines. You all have classes and eat lunch together. You hang out on the weekends and know each other’s parents. You don’t remember how you originally met. It’s lost in the general business of living and staying up late for book launch parties.

Luck is having a person you don’t know well because she’s been busy with soccer season point out that her student ID shortened her last name into her grade school nickname. From then on, you never call her anything else. She goes out of her way to have her dad drive you to a youth group. You go on ski retreats together where you are inseparable. You know the contours of each other’s lives. She becomes your college roommate.

It stops being luck somewhere along the way as you physically move away from each other and decide to stay connected. When you visit each other and plan a college graduation trip. When your group text spans a decade. When you’re in each other’s weddings. When you’re there for new babies and funerals.

They’re the ones you text at 7am because today you’re touring a middle school and how did we get here? Weren’t we in high school only a breath ago?

Twenty plus years of friendship. Lucky indeed.