Best Friends

Yes Chrissy! I used this pic! xoxo

A best friend can be anyone. It can be your mom or dad or it can be someone you met last week. There is no rule that is set in stone when it comes to being a best friend. They are simply there.
When you are sad, they are there. When your are mad, they are there. When you are hurt, they are there. When you are happy, they are there.
They may live next door or they may live around the world, but they are always there.
We rarely plan our best friends in life, rather it moves much more organically. As time passes by and we grow older we can pinpoint the times in our life when we truly needed someone there, someone to talk to and someone to smack some reality into our head. It is at those times that we can look right next to us and see the person that is there. Our best friend.
They are often brutally honest and say what needs to be said. Best friends have that freedom. They can say the harshest things to our faces and 5 seconds later we know that we needed that bitchslap and we call them an asshole and smile to ourselves and gives thanks that they were there.
My best friend came into my life during a time of serious change and difficulty. My family moved clear across the country when I was 10 and I was forced into a completely new environment, new school and new people. That kind of change is difficult for any person but for a 10 year old effeminate boy it can be a defining moment in your life.
She sat beside me in that grade 5 class and she was funny, introverted yet social. People knew her and liked her and she had a quirkiness about her that reminded me of me. Over the 2 years that I lived in that little town she was a good friend. We laughed, exchanged Cabbage Patch Kid clothes and did what 10 year olds do. We would go to the mall and eat fries at the Woolworth's lunch counter.
Then I moved away again at the age of 12 and in the times before Facebook and email we lost touch.
By the time I moved back to Newfoundland I was a man and I thought about the kids in my class from that small Newfoundland town often but never saw any of them or spoke to them again. I remember odd things about many of them but what one weird thing I remembered about Chrissy was her birthday. She shared my birth week and I always remembered that.
I was 27 years old and out at a bar one night and met a cute guy, we laughed and talked for a while, decided to walk up the hill to the Tim Horton's by his apartment. The topic moved from this to that and eventually the conversation shifted to his roommate. He mentioned that she was at home asleep. I asked her name. He said her name was Chrissy. For the obvious reason I immediately asked him if he knew when her birthday was. He said March 14th, 1973. Holy shit. What are the chances of there being two Chrissy's born on that day? He confirmed her last name and that small town that she was from and I asked him if we could go over to his place so I could talk to her. He told me she was probably asleep but I insisted.
I walked into this strange apartment into the darkness of that Saturday night. As he led me up the stairs to her room and knocked on the door I reached out and opened the door and stood there in the darkened room.
As she woke up she must have been startled by the two manly silhouettes standing before her. She rubbed her eyes, took a deep breath and in a soft but sure voice she said two words, "Jason Lush?"
It was like one of those TV shows where they find your family after 20 years. We laughed and we cried. We sat up all night and talked about where our lives had gone and where our lives were going. We re-connected in a way that was stronger than our original connection.
That was July of 2000 and from that day on we both have always known that we were indeed best friends. We lived and laughed for years after that. We fought and made up several times but we always reached out and made sure that we had each others back. She moved to Calgary and I haven't seen her in 4 years now and since then she has had 2 little girls that look just like her. She has become a mother, a fiancé, and the wonderful woman that I always knew she was going to be. We talk and text all the time but someday we will again live in the same place at the same time and we will sit down everyday and have a cup of tea and talk about all the losers in our lives and how superior we are to everyone else, then we will laugh smugly and do it again the next day. That is what we always did. We did it well.
I love my best friend like one can only love a best friend. Unconditionally. She can, and will irritate the hell out of me again no doubt and my life choices will continue to bug the hell out of her but in the end we will always have each other. That is what best friends are for.
Thanks Chrissy for all of the laughs and all of the tears. You have been an inspiration to me as often as you have been a pain in my ass. You are the woman I want to be and I am the man you will always dream of! lol Best friends! xoxo