I met her in the 7th grade. She was the girl that many other kids talked about. She had a gap tooth, pale as all get out and wild reddish hair. I was the kid who was short, skinny, shy, and black at a predominately white school. We knew each other, but weren’t really “friends.” I left school after that year and didn’t think any more about her. Fast forward to 12th grade, I start a new school, not really knowing too many people and I see my former classmate again. It was nice to see a familiar face, and we started to get closer. Fast forward again to fifteen years and she is my best friend, my sister, confidant. I love her as if she were blood.
They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and I know this to be true. I lived in California for thirty-one-and-a-half of my thirty-three years and then I moved across the Country to Atlanta and now in northern Virginia. To go from seeing my best friend almost every week to maybe once or twice a year was a definite shock to me. I realized that some of my loneliness is due to not having a real connection to anyone out here. I go out, I talk to my friends on the phone, I have fun, but it’s so much different to go out with people you just met, to going out with someone who gets you and your silly sense of humor.
We’ve never gotten in a fight. Yeah we’ve been irritated at each other, we have a difference of opinion, but we have a real respect for each other. She is always there for me, no matter what and I’m there for her, no judgments. We only want the best for each other. I hear so many stories of people who have friends that will sleep with their men, lie to them, steal, and backstab, but not my friend. She is a true friend!
Well my best friend is coming to town next month for a whole week and I can’t wait. It’s going to be so much fun, so much to catch up on. We’re going to New York for the day, going to eat till we burst, shop till we drop, and talk till we lose our voices ... Forget Santa Claus, my best friend is coming to town!
