We met across the ocean and over copious amounts of cheese and chocolate. When you find kindred spirits, you hold them close, no matter the distance or time between visits. While we spent four months together in Switzerland, traveling around Europe, and living in a sort of "Grand Budapest Hotel" situation in Croatia, our time between seeing one another steadily grew - a few months, a year, and then a couple of years. But we kept in touch. Mutually invested and following the action in each others' lives from a distance. After all, we had been together through bold fashion choices, breakups, hands getting stuck in Nutella jars, new jobs, loss, graduate school, and exciting new adventures. I hadn't seen them in four !FOUR! years and that changed this weekend. I think of home in various ways, though often not as a physical place. Rather, home is a feeling, and it's what I feel when I'm with these two. They are my heart home. Full of empathy, wit, integrity, determination, and intelligence. I feel at ease with these two gems - they make a rough time feel like it will pass and they make celebrating life's small moments feel like major accomplishments.

When friends are your heart home, it doesn't matter where you are in the world, as long as you're with them. And as for this trio, we found each other in Switzerland and haven't let go of each other since.

Maywood Pancake House, Maywood, New Jersey, USA

Ashbury Park Beach, Ashbury Park, New Jersey, USA (photo by M. Butler). (We've been asked multiple times if we are twins. We don't get it, but we're leaning in.)

Ashbury Park, New Jersey, USA (Photo by K. Marsh)

For further explorations into the dynamic world of female friendships (this is just an off-the-top-of-my-head list - there are so many more!) : Broad City (TV), Call Your Girlfriend (podcast), Another Round (podcast), Parks and Recreation (TV), Text Me When You Get Home (book), 2 Dope Queens (podcast), Ghostbusters (film), A League of Their Own (film), Summer Sisters (book), The Joy Luck Club (book), Ghost World (film), Frances Ha (film), The Secret Life of Bees (book), Grace and Frankie (Netflix), Girls Trip (film), Bridesmaids (film), Clueless (film), Waiting to Exhale (book/film), Swing Time (book), Before Everything (book), Mean Girls (film), Mystic Pizza (film), A Thousand Splendid Suns (book), Girls of Riyadh (book), Fried Green Tomatoes (book/film), The Heat (film), Beaches (book/film), Chimney Corners Camp for Girls (...a camp).