When my daughter and I made the recent trek to her childhood friend's wedding, it was also an odyssey of the heart and soul.

She watched someone she knew for 23 years get married. Since her sister's only 22, she's known her friend longer than she's known her own sister.

I got to see friends myself. The mother of the bride, of course, but she was pretty busy that day. At the reception, I sat between friends I've also known for 23 or more years. Friends I met when our children were toddlers.

We moved away when our children were early adolescents.

I've not replaced those friends.

There is something incredibly magnetic about the friends you make when you're all raising children together. When you haven't left the house for weeks because of passed around colds or chicken pox. When you yelled at your child in a way you promised yourself you never would. When they make you a cupcake with your favorite color sprinkles.

We share memories, yes, but there's more to it.

I can see a friend from those years, someone I haven't spoken to in five years, and we pick up immediately where we left off.

I see a current friend in the market and I can't remember if they're children are in middle school, high school, or if they're already empty nesters.

And I have other friends without children, but if we became friends during those years when my kids were small, it's the same.

There is something about those years. I think it's a youth elixir.

Now if only I could figure out how to bottle it.