#reconnection

#reconnection

When Jennifer Austin met Molly in second grade, they quickly became best friends. They giggled through classes until the teacher separated them, inspiring them to come up with their own language. They shared sleepovers and went on each other's family vacations. But they gradually drifted apart after Austin's family moved to Germany before the girls started high school. Decades passed before they recently reconnected as grown women.

My sister and I have always been close in the kind of way that only siblings with a two-year age gap can be. We grew up sharing everything from wardrobes to the same old hand-me-down phone. As adults, though, life has pulled us in different directions. She's 33 now, I'm 31, and somehow, we spent most of our twenties living in different countries.

When we talked, it wasn't just about jobs or kids or where life had taken us. It was also about remembering who we used to be - those fearless, awkward, hopeful kids who thought the world was ahead of them. There's something grounding about being seen like that again, by the people who knew your firsts and loved you just as you were.