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Dear Friend,

On this very special day (your 40th birthday) I wanted to take some time to reflect on our friendship and tell you how very special you are to me.

We met in 1981 (or 82 depending on the time of year) at cheer-leading tryouts.  I was in the 8th grade and you were in 7th.  Just saying that makes me feel a little old.  I believe you needed a flyer for your tryout and I agreed to assist.  We both made the squad and have been friends ever since (almost).  We spent our youth pushing the limits of “good girls”.  We never went out of our way to get into trouble, but surely pushed the envelope a little.  Like the time you insisted on going into The Small Planet because we knew my dad was in there and you thought we should say hi.  We never made it past the bar.  Two gentleman my father’s age insisted on buying us drinks, who were we to say no?   My dad came over and asked what we were drinking and tried to tell the men that I was his 17 year old daughter, but I insisted it wasn’t true and the men believed me (because they wanted to).  Dad had a pretty good sense of humor so we didn’t get in trouble…but we probably should have.

I’m sure we’ll never forget drinking tequila (stolen from Dad’s liquor cabinet) with diet Rock’n Rye.  We keep saying we’re going to do that again, but we never do.  Maybe we’re getting smarter!  We spent many nights up chatting about everything and I never felt like there was anything I couldn’t tell you.  I remember the fight you got into with your mom and then you moved in with us until…you had to scrub the kitchen floor after dropping your waffle on it.  Yep, bucket and scrub brush had you racing to get home.  Do you think the parents anticipated that?

I remember all the fun times we had after I moved in (both times) with you guys.  This was a more permanent arrangement and I’m sure my dad felt better knowing that 1) I moved a couple blocks away and 2) there was an adult monitoring our (my) comings and goings.  I guess since I was there most the time anyway, it made sense to move in and pay rent.

I’ll always remember sharing first loves and heartache and a hermaphrodite snowman. 

 We had a slight (10 year) fall out but once reconnected fell right back into stride.  I look forward to our yearly visits and am excited to have our first Mommy & Me trip with the girls.  I hope you know that you are like a sister to me and I treasure all our time spent together and hope it continues through the ages and the girls can become friends as well.  What a great friendship to pass along.

Thanks for being a great friend even if sometimes I didn’t deserve it.

R~

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