Tuesday, August 24, 2010

My Friend's Birthday

Today is the birthday of my longest-time friend, Laura. I'm feeling sentimental so I thought I'd look back at some things I remember.

In our relationship, I am almost always the free-spirited fool and she is the practical parent. I have always felt like we are more that way around each other. At times, it has frustrated me that I couldn't be more like her, but at the same time, it's one thing has not changed. We have always had that, no matter how our interests have changed over the years (we have known each other since kindergarten), or how far apart we have been (at times as far away as Okinawa, Japan when her husband was stationed there). Now that we're both back in Texas, we still haven't seen each other for 8 months, but in these long stretches where many of my other friends have become more like acquaintances, we have 20 years of material to reminisce about over Google Chat (c:

We walked around a lot. Maybe it made us feel more independent because we were too young to drive. Several of my memories were of conversations had while walking. I had a lot of trouble with my dad growing up, and on one of these walks (I remember we just coming over the hill before reaching her house), she told me that God wouldn't have put me in my family if He knew I couldn't handle it, and that I was basically cut out to fit for them. I had to find the strength to deal with it rather than run away (something I often considered during those years when I thought it was getting too much for me). It didn't stop the fights I had with dad, but it did stick with me and I learned a little bit better how to lean on God.

We did some pretty embarrassing things, too. The time we convinced our friends to dress up like members of Nsync and spent weeks (months?) meeting for rehearsals to teach ourselves the choreography of their most popular songs in preparation for our church youth group's "talent show." She was Lance Bass, I was Chris Kirkpatrick (they put my hair in tons of tiny braids and drew a goatee on my face with makeup), Amy Yerrington was Justin Timberlake, Kelly Motley was JC Chasez, and Aarin Manning was Joey Fatone. Oh wow... how I cringe when I think of how naive I was about the repercussions of that event. That just proves how bad it was, haha! It was caught on tape but I am pretty sure we destroyed it years later...

Laura introduced me to the Internet. It's true, she may not realize it. While I was stuck playing round after round of Solitaire on my family's computer, I'd go to her house and was instantly addicted to AOL Mail and Instant Messenger. That was back when you could survive off of free 30-day trial AOL CDs that you could find anywhere. Juno was the other "big" Internet, I understood it was just for email though. We spent a lot of time chatting with friends on AOL, including CKH72, a girl we met in a chat room and hit it off with. Laura might still talk to her every now and then? She kept in touch with her for many years. I can't think of that time without remembering how I would wait for Luke to get online, and being so elated when he'd actually respond to my IMs. His screen name was punkskatercow - lol. We did spend a lot of time in chat rooms, responding to a/s/l? questions, giggling and flirting. I don't remember ever talking about anything of significance.

There are so many more memories I could describe, but I need to get back to work (c; Hope you have a good birthday, my friend! Maybe in the next 25 years we'll live close enough to make some more memories. I love you!

1 comment:

  1. You are so sweet - I miss my favorite s*cuzzie too! Laura, happy birthday dear! I love how we lob back and forth the "beautiful" comments. Hearing that from you really makes my day. You are the best! Make sure your hubby treats you right tonight :) (woo!)

    ReplyDelete