It goes something like this...
The year was 1998. I was beginning another day as a brand spanking new high school freshman. I was different from most of the kids around me, because I had not attended the local middle school and was an outsider to most of the already established cliques. So, through the halls I roamed on my way to one of my morning classes, which was thankfully an elective I has chosen. Drama.
My Drama teacher was a bit eccentric, entertaining, but eccentric. As he stood on the stage explaining the dramatic exercise he had planned for us that day, you could hear snickers and quiet jokes coming from the audience of students at his feet. Included in the students cutting up that day was your's truly (I never can resist an easy joke) and, as Murphy's Law usually dictates, mine was the joke he heard. He also heard the girl a couple seats over who appreciated my quick wit and was laughing.
Out into the hall we were both sent to spend the remainder of the class period sitting on the steps of the auditorium.
From there a friendship was born.
We spent the next four years of high school attached at the hip. Lunch periods were spent sitting around a table talking about how we couldn't wait until Friday, or how stressed out we were over finals, or how that English teacher put me to sleep - again. We watched the popular girls with a mix of jealousy and disdain. We avoided the annoying guys who sat a few tables over.
She asked me to go to church with her one Sunday and welcomed me into her youth group, where I spent every Wednesday night for years. She introduced me to a handsome guy named Steve.
We both had the same part-time job, working at the local Chick-fil-A, and would spend the hours of 5pm-10pm three nights a week commiserating about how we couldn't wait to grow up and get the heck out of there.
Around our junior year we both had boyfriends, mine was that handsome guy named Steve, her's was a guy she met at the local McDonald's. I was there for that chance meeting too.
She threw me a surprise 16th birthday party, I was a chaperone on her first date.
Now, it wasn't all glitter and rainbows all the time - we were in high school after all - and we had our share of disagreements. Like the time she left me in the mall bathroom crying (you know, I couldn't leave that out!) but for the most part it was exactly what a friendship should be.
Most of my early memories of our friendship stop right after graduation. As is often the case, we went our separate ways once our high school days had come to a close. She went off to school as did I. I got married. She was at my wedding but not in it, something I regret to this day.
It was 6 years after our high school graduation before we reconnected. My sister found her profile on Myspace (remember Myspace?). She called and told me that I had been living in the same city (4 hours away from our home town) as my long lost high school best friend and didn't know it. Amazing how those things happen, isn't it?
We got together for lunch. We spent a few hours in the booth of a Mexican restaurant catching up. I couldn't believe how much of her was exactly the same. It was like having a little piece of the best parts of my life (up to that point) back. I was 16 with no responsibilities riding around in a car with the windows down screaming the words to my favorite songs as loud as I could.
It has been 7 years since that get together over tacos. We both still live in the same town, but as if that wasn't enough, we now live a street apart. She was there for the birth of my daughter. She was in the delivery room for the birth of my son. I was a bridesmaid in her wedding. She married the boy she met that night at McDonalds. She is one of the first people I call if I have a problem and she is always available if I am short some sugar or an egg or two.
She knows me. There is something very comforting in that. I can be myself around her. I am not worried that she is judging me or criticizing me. I am not worried if she sees me without makeup in my pajamas. I am not worried if the floors aren't mopped or the sink is full of dishes when she stops by. She has seen me through high school crushes and paranoid pregnancies. She has answered 12 am text messages and talked me off of several ledges.
There is a poem that says "People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime..."
This one is for a lifetime.
