Day 1: Your Best Friend

All ready, this is making it hard for me--technically, Michael is my very best friend, but he is mentioned later in the post. My siblings would also be considered, but they don't count because they are forced proximity emotional closeness, lol. But when you point blank ask me who my best friend is, I will almost always say: Erika.

Dear Erika:

You have been my friend since I was a brat 3rd grader and you were a new student. We met in Ms. Major's class...well, technically, the first time I met you, I public school roughed you up--I thought you were cutting in front of me in the lunch line, so I slugged you in the stomach. In retrospect, probably an overreaction, and surprising that I never got in trouble for that exchange....at any rate.

Our early friendship was fraught with childish, immature fights--you crying under the slide, me telling you that I would rather play with Barbara that day...But we kept perservering. Maybe in our young and silly minds, we still found something in each other that was special. Or maybe we were just so awkward and scared of losing a friend. Either way, it's 15 years later and we are still friends, that's got to count for something =)

I haven't always been a good friend...in fact, sometimes I have been down right shitty. But you have always stuck it out for me. Now you are halfway across the globe and I cry nearly every day in regret--regret for not spending more time with you when I had the chance. I miss you horribly...your dorky sense of humor, your endless suggestions for good books, your quiet patience and kind understanding. You were always the best of us, and we always knew it. And now you're off saving the world, and we are caught in the mucky muck thinking...I miss my 'Rika.

~Andie~