If the movies and TV shows and books are to be believed, then everyone should have a best friend. Everyone should have a 'person'. What I am about to write is an ode to my best friend, my 'person'. Why? Well, because I want to, and because the world seems to be collapsing around us, and we are at least together as it happens, if only to cackle like mad witches at our own misfortune.
It is strange for me, because I don't remember a time before I met my best friend. Not because my life started the day I met her, (really?? who would that be true for?) but because my memory is terrible, absolutely so. So, by the time my memory does seem to start to become more focussed, I was already about 10 or 11, and she was already my best friend. I don't know how that happened. It is likely that I walked into my new school on my first day, and walked out with a best friend for life.
What most movies and TV shows and books do not tell you, is that having a 'person' is not a guarantee to a perfect life. What is sure to happen though, is that the bad times suck a little less and the good times are a little bit fuller, life is all the better for the company. So for 16 years now, we have kept each other, 16 birthdays and new years and Christmases. 16 years of boys who love us and boys who don't, of tree climbing clubs and shared crushes, of birdwatching trips and nature walks. For 16 years we have jumped in rain puddles and made fake margaritas, dancing around the table. For 16 years, we have sat side by side on the most desperate and dark days of our lives, quietly relaying stories of grief that would end most people. And for all these years, we have fought and screamed and made rude jokes about life.
I have no enduring wisdom about best friends, for she is the clever one of us, but I can only tell you one thing, a few things in life are better than making your own family, than choosing the person that you hope will be around forever. And I hope your life is enriched, as mine has been, by being
her best friend.
She wrote the following for me, and in the middle of what is a difficult time, it made me smile and tear up just a bit.
Friday, December 04, 2009
her lovely garden
a few days ago, caught in myself, i stumbled into your
garden. a year has gone by since i last went there. and i couldn't leave. bladder aching, sleep deprived, i moved backwards through you. caught in reverse. swing forward. re-read.
the cacti and the flowers.
i'm proud. sad. happy. proud still. who are you?
so many colors stain us. above all things you are beautiful.
on bewilderment and pain at the crookedness of life i will say to my girl these things:
from the infinite monkey theorem: " The probability of a monkey exactly typing a complete work such as Shakespeare's Hamlet is so tiny that the chance of it occurring during a period of time of the order of the age of the universe is minuscule, but not zero."
minuscule but not zero. our chances are better than that.
besides, we have our:
eyes (to see with and read!)
mouths (foooooddddd)
limbs (to walk and beat people with)
minds (well some semblance of)
at the end of the day, there's much to be done, a lot of which i know i don't much care for, but some of which i do, and plenty. then there are good times and bad times. there are times when they bleed into one another and you know the whole how feeble is man's power thingumma
bob... so dont join it to your strength or teach it art and length, my bean.
remember, every morning, we can sing with great abandon:
here comes the sun.
i'm happy and grateful that i know you.
it's 2:34 PM
1 comments:
Chelsea Dagger said...
Perhaps it is not enough to just say that I love you, but it is true that I do. And just so I can, I will add that you mean the world to me. Thank you. What's the song, about you being my sunshine?
2:22 PM
