Last weekend, I went to Pennsylvania with my friend, her mom, and her sister to a cabin I hadn’t been to in more than two decades.

The friend is question is my best friend since 5th grade, introduced to my life right before my parents’ divorce. She’d just moved to my town after her own parents’ divorce. The timing seemingly fortuitous. And her mother took me in as her fourth daughter with open arms.

Every trip the family went on, I went too, including to their cabin in the Poconos, the setting for some of my most cherished memories. Snowball fights in the driveway after we arrived home from dinner. Nights spent snowtubing at the lodge. Summers at the lake. Afternoons spent reading romance novels on the faux leather couches.

We were always able to con my friend’s parents into one more game of Monopoly, knowing full well that the game would go on for hours and maybe even get us an extra night.

And then one day, I stopped going with them.

We were probably sixteen or seventeen by that point. And life was getting busier. My friend and I had cars and jobs and colleges to apply to. Boyfriends got added to the mix.

I’ve been spending a lot more time with my friend and her family recently. Birthday dinners, dog sitting, drinks on a Saturday night. And in the mix of all these outings, my friend said, “We should go to the Poconos again.”

I was on board with bells on.

The house hadn’t changed one bit in all the years since I’d last seen it aside from a fresh carpet and new living room furniture. It was like walking back into being 10 and 11 and 15, which is to say incredibly trippy.

I was assaulted by the idea that in life there are lasts that we didn’t know were lasts. Actions and events that we do repeatedly, so we never think there will be a last.

The last time I held my niece and nephew as babies and little kids. The last time my girlfriends and I went dancing. The last time my friend and I drove around for our annual hot chocolate and Christmas lights viewing.

So many years of my life were spent with friends and family, doing these things. It never occurred to me that there would be an end. And as someone who revels in a good round of anticipatory grief, it never occurred to me that the last time was the last time.

And there I was in the old cabin in the Poconos, laughing just like all those times before the last time. But we were older now. And yet somehow also all the ages we’d been in my memories of this place. Proof that maybe there is no such thing as time, if at 39 I am able to feel exactly how I felt as that 10 year old girl, whose best friend’s family adopted her during her own parents’ divorce.

How did I not know that the last time was the last time? How did I miss such an important marker? Certainly, there had to have been something different that occurred in that final trip that would differentiate it from all the others. But when I look back on my memories, I can’t pinpoint one thing that made it stand out from all those other times.

But I don’t want to look for the last times because I’ve never liked good-byes. I’d much rather think down on the line of time to realize that I haven’t done something in a while rather than feel all the pain of knowing I’ll never see or experience it again.

Is this the last time I’ll go to the Poconos with them? Time will tell.

Until next week, friends.