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Earlier this year, Sarah and I had a rare experience: a long car ride without the kids. It was just the two of us in the car for over four hours – with no kids shows playing in the background, no interruptions, no little ears nearby.  And we spent four hours just talking about us. I don't quite remember how it started, but it became this moment-by-moment retelling of our relationship from the very start – from back in high school as we were just becoming friends.

For decades she has been my favourite person in the world, my best friend, the heart of all my best memories, and you'd think there wasn't much more we could learn about our story. But maybe through complete honestly, new perspectives earned over time, and Sarah's still shockingly good memory for details, we both learned things we didn't know. When we got home, I pulled out a box of old letters and it became this archeological dig. The words I’d written, I'll admit, were shockingly juvenile at times, but I think the biggest surprise was how clearly we loved each other before we even knew it. And Sarah's letters reaffirmed it when we found her bundle. We'd begun writing as friends, before unconditional friendship became unconditional love. Our friendship came though vulnerability – sharing our "darkest secrets" (not that dark, in retrospect). And it's clear through how often we wrote and some of the content (we were both seeing other people throughout most of it, and while the letters never really crossed the line, Sarah pointed out a few choices sections saying, "Does a friend write this to a friend?"

Out of this little archeologic dig, we became absolutely obsessed with each other again. It was unexpected and wonderful. I went back to Georgetown alone with the kids the following week, but spent all of my time writing or calling Sarah while I was away. It was just like when we first started dating –wanting to spend all of our time together. But it wasn't just nostalgia or recreating old times. Strange as it is to say, it was like existing in more than one place and being more than one person at once. Loving Sarah as a twenty year old kid but also as I am now. It was such a gift. This intensity we had decades ago came back redoubled. And it's still there. Life hasn't let us live in it full time like we did for a while after that car ride, but it's still there and recoverable in an instant.

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