There have been so many times that I have thought to myself, "I ought to write a whole post on how great (fill in a friend's name here) is." And yet I go about my day and think I'll write later. I have literally thought dozens of times what a shame it is that usually somebody has to die before we will publicly profess our love for them...or at least we wait for once a year when we write something sweet in a birthday card.
Well, I'm making a resolution to blog about the people in my life, and explain why I love them to an objective reader. And I am going to start off with Jessica.
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| Pic from Jessica's 24th Birthday last May (You can see more pics or read about our fun time at the lake here) |
I wanted to be Jessica's friend the first day I met her, at our Farmerette uniform fitting. We had just made drill team, and were the scrawny eighth graders at the big high school. I went to Hedrick Middle School, and Jessica went to Huffines.
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| This was me at the time...13 years old, 8th grade cheerleader (and flautist) at HMS. Go Wranglers! Ha! |
The first time I saw Jessica, I thought she was the prettiest girl I'd ever seen in person. When I realized we would be on drill team together, I thought I could be her friend, and I was already excited thinking about shopping with her. This is truth. I really thought this, and I never said it aloud. But I really thought how cool I would be, if I could be friends with
that girl.
After meeting Jessica, I realized how incredibly kind she was. She was ten times prettier than any girl around, but she cut back and relaxed, giving off an accepting vibe. I remember the first time she came over to my house, back on Firewater Circle! Her mom (who was only 28 years old...*sidenote!
thinking that I'm only 3 years younger than Monica was on that day makes me have MAD RESPECT for Monica....that'll be for a different post!!!) dropped her off and picked her up. We went swimming and looked through eachother's yearbooks. We told eachother who the "cool" guys were and weren't. We even played a game where I would guess who the popular, cool guys were, based on their picture, and she would do the same for my school. It gave us an objective, shallow, way to decide who is cool based on other qualifying factors besides appearance! Ha! She told me about her boyfriend, and I thought it was pretty incredible that she had a boyfriend for as long as she did. I forget now how long they'd been together, but my longest relationship was only 4 months at the time...
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| (Kyle Spencer!) |
...and I was so ready for a long-term boyfriend. Little did I know, there would be plenty of boys that would come and go for each of us, but what I was really gaining, was a long-term best friend.
Going to LHS North was a fun and exciting time, because we felt we had a slight advantage over the rest of the kids, having been through drill team camp together, and bonded over the summer. The next four years would provide some of the BEST of my entire life, with too many drillteam memories to even recall...everything from getting initiated (by picking up roadkill and jumping in the lake...in a Wonder Woman costume...then being dropped off at the drill team director's front doorstep!) to staying at our mutual friend Ashley's lakehouse (Ashley will definitely warrant a blogpost soon, she, too, is an angel)...we had nights that people write books about. Nights that movies haven't even thought of yet. Walking through a fast food drive through lane, backwards. Befriending a transvestite and running up and down the aisles in a cozy-coup-cart at midnight. Sticking our heads out of the sunroofs at night, with Fat Joe and Ashanti bustin' the speakers....We were there through thick and thin. I saw her long-term boyfriend go, and new guys come around. She saw me fall in and out of love with my "high school sweetheart" (who will NOT receive a blog post in the future). We both had boyfriends that our parents despised, and we both helped eachother date them anyway. And we both were there, drying the other's tears, when *our hearts* (I'd previously accidently typed 'her' but it was definitely both of us at one time or another!) ended up broken, just as everybody had warned. We were there with family issues, and we confided in one another, in the way that only best friends really can. Thank God I had her, and I'm fairly certain I can say she was glad to have me, too. We wrote letters to eachother almost every day, and I still have about 50 folded up letters with Jessica's adorable handwriting. I'll never throw them away!!!
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Making our own nicknamed-pants
(We were crafty WAY before Pinterest) |
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| Go Sooners!!!! |
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| Go high school metabolism!!!!! |
Our birthdays are 5 days apart. We are both strong Geminis. With our two distinct personalities (each!), there's always fun times to be had, especially around our birthday. May 22 and May 27 are some of the best birthdays in the entire year, by the way. Actually, no offense, Jess,
but my birthday is probably the best day of the entire calendar year. It is so evenly spaced with Christmas! And this year...it falls on Sunday before Memorial Day, a paid holiday.
SCORE. It usually fell around the last day of school when I was living the dream back in high school (
sigh, I miss those days)...anyway, I got off track there, but yes.
Our birthdays are always happy times.
I particularly remember and love our 16th birthday, when we called the other the day we got our cars. Picked eachother up and went joyriding. I wonder how many times we drove around, listening to music, just to feel free. Back then, that was the most freedom we'd ever known. And we experienced that transitional time together.
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| Drinking before and after our 21st birthdays...ha! |
When I moved to Oklahoma, my friendship with Jessica really faded. I'll take the blame; I moved and didn't put forth a lot of effort in maintaining strong friendships back home. But I have to say this...perhaps my favorite quality of Jessica's...was her ability to pick right up where we left off, and it seems like no time has passed at all. I feel so comfortable around her. I can be sad, happy, angry, confused, or giddy like a little 14 year old girl all over again. She gets me, I get her, and there is a level of comfort there.
Okay, as much as I love that, that's not my FAVORITE quality about her. I think Jessica's best quality is her GENEROSITY. And I don't just mean with money (though she is the most generous friend I have. Bar none. And yes, I mean with money...and lunches, drinks, presents, gas, everything!)...Jessica is also generous with her time and love. This past Monday night, all the girls got together. I couldn't drive because of my
PRK eye surgery, and Jessica called Sunday asking if she could pick me up. Mind you, I live a good 30 minutes from Jessica's work, and a good 40 minutes from Erin's apartment (where girls' night was). She picked me up, took me there, and took me home. The gas alone was probably $10, the time spent alone just to get/drop me off was at least an hour (probably way more), and she didn't even seem inconvenienced. It was like she
wanted to.
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| Jessica also came over the night of my PRK surgery, and brought both George and me Thai dinner (my favorite). Just another example of how generous she is with her time and money! |
I remember one time we were at my place, and a friend in need called Jessica. Jessica left immediately. I thought right then, "What a good friend to have in crisis." She is totally dependable
and generous. She is one of the sweetest girls I know, and I'm lucky to have her as one of my best friends. Moving back home was one of the best decisions I've ever made, and I'm so grateful to have Jessica close to me again.
Why do we wait until something bad happens to tell people what we think of them? I hope you know RIGHT NOW how much you mean to me and how I want everybody in my life to know how great you are, Jessica!
I love you!!!!!!
