The art of friendship. Commitment is everything.
[written some time ago, saved as a draft and edited today.]
K,
Thank you so much for inviting me to go out today. Your timing is always right on target. With the weather so beautiful, and my mood being the way it has, you knew that I would be experiencing one of my bouts with “cabin fever”. We we’re so excited when I told her that we would be heading up to Dallas to see a movie with you and B. We were late, as we always are when we go someplace together, but we got there! With our arms full of movie snacks we rushed into the theater 10 minutes after it’s begun, like we usually do. Punctuality has always been one of our on-going jokes.
How long have we been friends? Let me think. I’f I’m 33 and we met when I was 4, then that would make our friendship 29 years and still going strong, this month. Wow. How many people can claim to have had the same best friend for 29 years. A friend of absolutely no blood relation, but as close as any sisters could hope to be. For fourteen years you lived 2 houses down. On our tiny street, in our tiny town.
We were telling the girls stories of our childhood this afternoon. Boy, if those girls only knew of all the trouble we got into. Do you remember playing truth or dare with M and S? Remember playing Army with all of the boys and using charcoal as hand grenades?
I laugh everytime I think of us learning to sew. We were sitting on your water bed and I decided that the mattress would be a good spot to stick my needle. What’s a little hole in a water bed mattress between friends though?
8th grade banquet was so much fun. I still have the pictures of you in that hot pink gown. What a site you were. Beehive and all. You wanted to kill your mom. And for good reason.
I’ll never in my life forget that damn dog that hated me. Rinny the Skipperkee. Holy hell, that dog wanted to rip my throat out. I never knew I could jump so high. Don’t laugh. It’s still not funny.
Think of all the hours we spent rewinding that Air Supply tape trying to write down the lyrics. What an eternally huge waste of our time. I still remember every lyric though.
Chocolate mayonnaise cake ring any bells? I just knew that you we’re out of your mind when you told me that you were going to bake me a chocolate mayonnaise cake. That was the beginning of our love of food.
I know that you will remember lick-n-rub stamps, and sneaking into the CC when we were 17. Driving home from Fort Worth at 5:00 in the morning. What about the time we drove home with our tops off? Just because we could.
Your first husband was my boyfriend first. You actually started dating him, knowing that I really liked him. He only had eyes for you though. It’s too bad that you guys didn’t work things out, I guess you we’re just too good of friends.
Living together wasn’t a great idea. You tend to be messy and I’m overly neat. Your a night owl and I ike to go to bed early. Isn’t it funny how some things change and others always stay the same. Now I’m the nocturnal one. We know each other so well, and love each other so much that we can say anything to each other. That would be our dwelling together downfall. But, it didn’t break us.
We have had arguments over boys, toys, jobs and everything in between, but we always come out of it respecting the other more for it. At one point I think we even went 8 months without speaking. Only to come back together like we hadn’t missed a single day.
We are both so lucky to have the families that we do. I adore your family and you are just another kid in my family home. You even lived with my brother, with much better results than you and I had! When Mom had her heart transplant you took care of me. We were freshmen in high school and you put your social life on hold to give your full attention. The night I found out that Mom got her new heart you and I were sitting on the tailgate of my Dad’s truck. Do you remember that night? We held each other and cried. I’ll never be able to replace a memory like that. And when she died a year ago tomorrow, you saved me. You drove me to order the flowers, you helped me to pick out the coffin, you insisted on accompanying me to every horrible meeting at the funeral home and never complained once. 3 months after she was gone you moved home from Austin solely because I need you here with me in Dallas. You redefine the meaning of commitment and the art of friendship.
We’ve swapped boyfriends, borrowed each others clothes, babysat each others kids, took care of each other during illnesses and picked each other up after each hard fall.
4 years ago I had to be picked up. My mental state was highly questionable and when everyone else was ready to point their finger you opened your hand. I turned my back on every single person in my family and held only you close. You understood. You never judged, but only listened and encouraged. When I was threatened, you were there to make me take a strong look and realize my mistakes. You saved me. I didn’t know it at the time but that was my first manic episode. I left home one day and never came back. My husband, my kids, my life. I left it all and you still made me feel secure in your love. You knew before I did that I would need someone to count on. Someone who truly cares about me. A person that I could trust, who loved me before and will love me after. We made it thru that episode and God willing, we will make it thru this one. 4 months of mania seemed to last a lifetime, and it did. But, this time - well, it’s going on 12 months now. You’re still here.
C is convinced that I’m cycling down. I don’t know. Part of me wants this to end and part of me never wants to give it up. I’m scared of whats to come. I’m scared of the pit that I may tumble into when I cross that ravine between mania and depression. Am I going to end up in bed for 6 months, feeling lost and hopeless? I don’t want to go threw that again. In my head - I know that it doesn’t have to be like that, but I’ll be damned if I know how to stop it.
Tomorrow marks the 1 year anniversary of her death… You took it upon yourself to ask my boss if I could have the day off. I’m still not sure if I’m ok with that. You planned a day filled with a massage, shopping and hopefully that first tattoo that I’ve been talking about for the last 12 months. All in the hopes that I would be too distracted by constant activity to be paralyzed by the pain of loss. I know what your afraid of. Your fear echoes my own.
