I’m 37, and my best friend is 54. She’s 54. She’s 54. She’s 54. She’s 54. She’s 54. She’s 54. She’s 54. She’s 54. She’s 54. She

Each year on her birthday, Edith sends an email to everyone she’s ever met (within reason) She invites us to her favorite place on Earth : a remote spa 20 minutes north of Palm Springs .

Edith is 54 . I'm 37 . We live on opposite sides of the country and have no mutual friends, but we talk every Saturday.

The AARP defines an intergenerational friendship as a friendship with someone at least 15 years older or younger than you.

After your 20s , friendships rooted in the soft, tenuous soil of commiserating over early failures or obsessing over [insert the sitcom of your generation here] tend to fade as people become actually skilled at something and their lives start to take shape.

The older counterparts in these relationships tend to be childless.

We're drawn to friends who match our internal age more than our external one.

For every drop of gold, there’s a moment that throws our age gap into harsh relief, like the time Edith got irrationally freaked out by the anonymous animals in Google Docs .

But I'm friends with Edith not for tactical reasons. That's what my thirtysomething peers with well-lit LinkedIn headshots are for. Edith doesn’t help me fix my life. She helps me understand it and hover slightly above it.