Almost half my life ago—thirty-five years to be exact—my best friend and I parted ways. We were going in different directions, and it made sense to travel solo on our opposing journeys. But what made sense on paper, felt so very painful inside my heart. Today I found out I was not the only one hurting.

We met when we were eighteen-year-old freshmen at the University of Washington seeking community in our sorority, Alpha Delta Pi. She had traveled across the state, leaving her home and four siblings behind. If anyone needed a surrogate family to fill that void, it was my friend, and my parents were happy to take on that role. One of my fondest memories was sharing my dad at a ‘Daddy & Me’ luncheon (the picture is us at age eighteen) and from that point forward, we became fast friends—a friendship that lasted seventeen years.

There are many reasons the friendship had to end back in 1988, but today all those reasons melted away as we reconnected over lunch for the first time in thirty-five years. The hugs and tears made me wonder why we waited so long, but perhaps there was never a more perfect time to meld our hearts than today.

Time has a way of moving forward even when we cannot. I can never retrieve those years, but I am so glad we have cleared a path to a new friendship. I won’t forget this day and I promise I won’t wait another thirty-five years for our next lunch.

If you’re waiting for an old friend to make the first move to heal a broken relationship, I urge you to make that call. Don’t let another day and another day and another day turn into thirty-five years. I promise you will not be sorry.

As I drove away today, it was only fitting that my Spotify chose an old song that said it all: Funny How Time Slips Away…