There’s something that I noticed this week and it’s because my best friend is currently M.I.A.
It’s that she’s super important and that means that I, naturally, take her for granted.
What happens when the person you talk to all day suddenly goes away? There’s a huge gap in your life.
My best friend is on her honeymoon and although she cursed me for cursing her to have a honeymoon baby, I really hope they are having a fantastic time because they both deserve a break from the busy daily lives they lead. And all this goddamn snow.
So, while she’s making a baby (ha ha, she’s going to kill me) I’m just hanging out with my part time baby thinking “Goddamn, who am I going to tell that I just got poop on my hand and I’m trying not to scream so I don’t scare the kid?” “Who am I going to tell that Carol genuinely thinks the Queen of England is Maggie Smith?” “Who am I going to tell that I peeled my nail polish off and it was incredibly satisfying?”
Your best friend. That’s who. That’s the person who cares.
And while I might not be the most articulate when it comes to writing my feelings, and we may not hug all the time or are super affectionate people or even let the other person know that we care by saying it outright, we do. And we do keep trying to remember to show we care in some sort of way.
I know she cares because if we haven’t spoken for a few days I get one word in a text message that is the fire beacon across the land to make sure I’m still alive:
“Fucker!”
I can’t wait to receive that text after her honeymoon. And then hear all about how she’s sun burnt and gained five pounds from drinking and eating when we all know it’s because she’s pregnant.
Hahahaha. She’s going to punch me in the face the next time she sees me.
(And yes, I know that it’s biologically impossible for her to get that pregnant that fast.)
I love my stupid best friend and hope she’s having a fun time with her husband. So instead of writing about working out or KMF, I’ll write about how I met this asshole.
“Once upon a time when I was a young lass of 21, I decided that I was bored out of my tree and wanted to go back to school. So I put forth the effort to do so and with a simple sentence from my mother my course was set: “I’ll let you take the car if you go to a school that is close.”
With that I chose to go to culinary school instead of going to Sudbury for a writing program or something that was probably more in my wheelhouse.
Nervous little Nellie over here hustled around school barely speaking because she has social anxiety. Class after class she tries to scout out potential friends much the same way that a fox circles a hen house.
Okay, not as creepy as all that. I was just trying to recognize people that I met up with in each class or took the same elective classes with.
I had a score to settle with French, so that was my elective. And I noticed that I kept seeing the same dark haired girl in most of my classes, a girl who wasn’t afraid to raise her hand and answer a question, a girl who call out people who were being immature or mean, and this same girl who had enough confidence to curse without doing a double take and turn red.
Naturally, being a complete and utter anti-social weirdo, I decided the easiest thing to do would be to “casually” sit near this person and hope that she spoke first and maybe I would have a new friend.
Little did I know that I was working up the nerve to talk to my current best friend.
I believe her first words to me were: Hey, aren’t you in my Small Quantity class?
Yes I was. And from then on we started a tentative friendship.
Until one day we got a bigger push in the right direction.
Nikki’s partner in Small Quantity dropped out and my partner continually proved to be a moron (I’m talking burnt French onion soup, and nearly scalding his own face off with hot oil.) so I got pissed off one day and asked her if I could work with her instead of him.
And the greatest team since the X-Men was born.
In the, Jesus Christ, has it been 7 years? You’d have to double check with her but I think that’s accurate when we hit October.
Anyway, in the 7 years that I have known her, I have laughed, learned, and traveled with her. Essentially I have grown up with her and seen more of the world because I met her and she pushed me to grow.
She doesn’t judge that I listen to the kids version on those little headphones that museums give you, she joins in when I do something out of sheer curiosity (ie. Leaning over the edge of a cliff in Scotland to see what it looks like even though there is a sign there that says not to. Her mom is never going to let me take her anywhere ever again haha.) and tells me I’m a “fucking idiot if we die”, she goes out of her way to help me see the things I want to see but doesn’t put up with my nonsense (ie. “We can go on the Hogwarts Express, but we aren’t looking at every fucking Harry Potter thing we come across over there. You get two.” I snuck in more.) and has her heart in the right place when it comes to helping me find the love of my life. (ie. “Ginger, giant, beard? Ew! But let’s go to Scotland so we can find you a lumberjack.”)
We have toughed out school, been a team, had a handful of fights that we end up laughing at later, call each other out on our shit without being mean, support each other through the big decisions, curse each other when that decision leads to living far away, and share awkward hugs every once in awhile when I finally come home.
She’s one of the steadiest people in my life and I couldn’t be a gypsy nerd if she wasn’t always my right hand man cheering me on in speeches laced with an encouraging amount of curse words.
Which quite frankly, is fucking adorable because she’s got such a lady like demeanour and her voice is like 10 octaves higher than my low tones, that it’s hilarious to listen to her curse like a trucker in such a tiny body.
This is the longest thing ever. I’m going to quit now before she gets a big head.
The Deranged Librarian 