Fun Monday: Bestest of Buds

So, Willowtree has asked us to:

"Tell us about your best friend. Particularly things like: where you first met, how long you've been friends and why you think you are best friends"

When I think of my best friends, I consider several of my friends very important to me. Two others are notable, but the two who are my bestest are Kaytabug and Not Craig.

I have posted before about how I met Not Craig. He is my best friend, he is my mate, he is the person I wake up to and fall asleep with and can spend the whole day chatting away with in between. We can spend an entire day at home, talking and still have more to say when we have to go to bed. He makes me laugh until I cry. He lets me cry until it is time to make me laugh. He puts up with my bad moods, my stubbornness, my ridiculous issues, all with tender care. He makes me want to be a better person. He is a wonderful man and I am so lucky to have him as one of my best friends.

Kaytabug and I met way before I have any recollection of living. I have vague memories of our childhood, various bits and pieces of hanging out during the summer, after school, on the weekends. Various memories of all four seasons. Everyday from the first couple years of life until I was fifteen, when my family moved. I have lots of memories of my friendship with Kaytabug. Riding our bikes across town every day in the summer. The skating rink. Her teaching me to ice-skate when the creek behind our houses froze over. Sneaking out. Her doctoring up my knees after a really bad bicycle crash. Sneaking cigarettes behind her house. Our first boyfriends. So many varied memories.

The strange thing about our relationship is that it continued when I moved. I have a box full of letters from before email existed. We wrote back and forth constantly after I moved. Updating each other on the minutae of our existence. Once we upgraded to email, we continued our communications back and forth via email. And now, we chat via instant messenger. I suppose due to the long distance aspect of our relationship, we have not chatted on the phone much over the past years. Even now that she is in the States, we use IM primarily. Now that she has a blog, I love to learn new things about her and her life that we never think to discuss.

Two summers ago, after I uprooted my life (discussed in the Not Craig post), I took a week off and drove from Houston to Kansas to see her and other old friends. I stayed with her at her mom’s house, on the same street we grew up on. The same house where we had many sleepovers, built haunted houses in her basement and played in the backyard. We picked up like we always have, just meshing so well.

While our lives have taken different paths, our collective history keeps us as friends. I always wonder if we would be friends still if I stayed in Small Town, KS. I also always wonder if we will stay friends for the remainder of this journey.

She fascinates me with her wisdom, her wit, her ability to always say the right thing. She has sent me gifts after not seeing me or my home for years and always gets it right.

Our relationship has spanned nearly the entire 3 decades we have existed. I know that we will continue to be friends for the remainder of our existence. I just hope one day we can sit on one of our front porches and drink coffee in the morning, instead of doing it over a thousand miles and a keyboard.