When did we first become friends? I sometimes wonder.

What moment, exactly?

It’s scrolled there in my journal in the hurried handwriting of a newish mom at 10:45pm: “I met up with the Moms Meetup Group for ‘Toddler Time.’ I was very nervous, but everyone was so nice. I think I could make some friends there.”

But that wasn’t the moment.

That was a moment fourteen years ago that eventually led to the moment. Because over time, I did make some friends there – a few who came and went so quickly they barely are owed a mention, one whom I cross paths with every once in a while and we catch up quickly before moving on again, one who ended our friendship in a fiery storm of emails a few years after, and one long-lasting friend in particular – the type of friend you hold onto, the type of friend you never forget. The type of friend whom you think about often, looking back over a decade and a half of moments, wondering when the moment was that it all began.

I remember talking to her that first day, standing side by side, watching her toddler play with the others, chatting casually about the tiny baby in her belly and the chubby one in my arms. Knowing what I know now, that both of us are socially anxious introverts who would rather poke our eyes out than engage in small talk, it’s honestly a miracle that that conversation happened at all.

But that wasn’t when our friendship began. Not really. From that point forward, it would still be months (years?) before I could look at her and confidently say, “That’s my friend.”

So when did our friendship begin?

Was it eight months later, when there was an ice storm that knocked out the power on our street for five full days and she graciously offered an invitation to the guest bedroom in her basement so that we could have a warm place to sleep with our one-year-old?

Was it during those monthly Bunco nights when we would talk and laugh about our kids and life in general, though I mostly listened while she chatted with other moms whom she knew better?

Was it a couple months later, when I revealed to her that I had miscarried the baby I desperately wanted, the one we tried to conceive on the bathroom floor in her basement during that terrible Ice Storm of 2012?

Was it a year after that, when I tentatively asked if she might be willing to watch my oldest daughter because I was pregnant again and had an ultrasound to go to and I couldn’t bear to bring my toddler to an appointment where there might be bad news? (Spoiler alert: it was not bad news.)

Was it sometime in the months that followed, when our mutual friend started inviting us both to spend time as a trio because she could see that there was a connection there, waiting to happen?

It happened sometime in there, the soft launch of a friendship, but when?

Certainly it was before the birth of my second child, when this friend walked the hospital halls with me and held my hand during an induction from hell. It was before the third and fourth babies where she did the exact same thing, witnessing my family grow, my very own rebirth over and over, my lifelong dream of a large family coming to fruition.

And it was before that first Thanksgiving that our families spent together, and all of the ones that came after, ending only because they moved away.

And it was before that move, of course, where we spent a day loading their lives into a moving truck and then clung to each other and wept as we said goodbye.

And it was before The Very Bad Day, when one of us nearly lost her life and baby while giving birth and the other was given a cancer diagnosis, which led to The Very Bad Year that followed.

It was before the coffee dates, the Black Friday shopping marathons, the long Voxer messages, the Zoom chats, the getaway to Savannah and the one to Cape Cod, the birthday and Christmas packages in the mail, the heart-to-hearts and the confessions and the “Love you, friend” said time and time again.

It was before all of that, but here we are over a decade later, and it’s hard to say when our friendship began exactly. It was a slow burn for months or years. Maybe there wasn’t one definitive moment that started it all, just a series of moments where we showed up, reached out, sat down and said, “Yeah, me too” and “It’s okay to feel that way” and “I’m here.”

And isn’t that all that really matters in the end? Isn’t that the only thing that matters at all? In the messy middle of life, we found connection. We found solidarity. We found dependability. We found stability. We found someone who filled the loneliness gap, who listened when we needed to talk, who understood or at least tried to, who was there. Through all the good, the bad, the ugly, and the unusual. When we weren’t our best selves and had nothing to offer and said dumb things and weren’t making sense… She was there. I was there. Two thousand miles apart and a million lives lived since that day we first met and neither of us have given up on each other yet.

So maybe the question isn’t, when did we first become friends?

But instead, maybe the only question that counts is the simplest one texted every week, Hi, friend. How are you?

Those simple ones, done over and over, are sometimes all it takes to say:

I see you.

I love you.

I’m here for you.