Time spent with friends is different in your thirties than it was in our twenties. In our twenties, it was spending weekdays studying at the library, evenings ordering carry-out and huddled together on our dusty apartment floors watching episodes of Felicity or Sex in the City. It was weekend days together shopping or together at the street fair. It was late nights eating ice cream out of the carton and watching romantic comedies to heal from our latest heartbreaks with our right hand women at our sides, couch-style.

In our thirties, friendship is planning weeks in advance for that happy hour after the kids are in bed, or finding that one day in two months that we are both off during the day for a few hours and blocking it off in red on our calendars. For me, October 6th has been highlighted in red with the word LISA for the last two months. As we sift through the must-dos and the want-to-dos of everyday life, kids and careers and husbands and parents and housework gets to us first.

In the back of our minds, we still cherish those friendships that have carried us to this point, but everything else steps in our way, demanding our attention. In all of this, I’ve found one thing that has kept us connected and able to say, “Hey, I still love you from behind all of these to-dos, I am still thinking about you.” That connection happens through texts. Phone calls are hard to coordinate. When you are free to catch up on your drive home from work, I am elbow-deep in bubble bath scrubbing down three sets of sticky hands. It is even tougher to coordinate in-person get-togethers. But there are those times throughout the day when something reminds me of you or something makes me laugh or groan that I feel compelled to share, and so I reach out and you respond when you can, and that human, adult connection reminds me that I am not alone. I am here in my current to-dos and you are there in yours, but we are here to say to each other, “me too.”

It seems like a small thing. A silly thing. A text here, a text there. But sometimes, when you are feeling isolated in your day and feeling so overwhelmed by parenthood and adulthood, friendship is still that undercurrent that pulls you along and gives you that love that only sisterhood can give.

To all my ladies, I hope you feel me hugging and loving you through those sometimes texts, because I am feeling it from you and needing it to get me through, now that we can’t share a take-out carton of noodles or a lazy Saturday morning debating brunch spots. Our lives are fuller now, but it wouldn’t be filled without you still an arms’ reach away making me smile and reminding me you are right here with me.