Happy Birthday

It's BF1's birthday today. We're the same age. We met when we were 12 and we'd just started grade seven at a new school in a small town in Manitoba. Her family built a house across the road from where our mother and the four of us moved in with mum's new husband. Her dad reminded me of my dad, who I wouldn't see for another 12 years.

We hit it off, in some respects by necessity (rural Manitoba, girl across the road the same age you are. Put it together.) although eventually we became two halves of the same person. Our homes were different; ours was early rural white trash, hers was dug out of poverty and into prosperity new and shiny. Our tastes were different: she dated bad boys, I dated all boys. All of them. Leave no stone unturned. I was very angry much of the time. She was anxious. You can see that this has the roots of a forever friendship.

I did things I wasn't proud of (see "...dated all boys" above) and when she got engaged I was jealous. I didn't know that I was jealous at first, but it was the beginning of learning to understand myself, something I'm remarkably good at now. I was the maid of honour at her wedding, and I love her husband (not in the "...dated all boys" sense) and always have. The jealousy didn't spring from the fact that she was getting married and I wasn't, but because he was getting her and I wasn't. (not in the "...dated all boys" sense of he was getting her and I wasn't.)

We didn't talk to each other for a long time (yeah, you know the drill, "...dated all boys" and we should add slept with some too) and then we did.

When people meet us now they cannot believe that we live across the country from each other because we are too similar for words. We don't look alike, we just think and talk and act alike. We have two children each, an elder girl child and a younger boy child. Hers are 10 years older than mine. The girls carry our respective names as their middle names.

I could describe everything about us and not capture the full essence of our friendship. I could sit here and write all night and not tell you what it means to have a friend like her. Maybe you know. If you do then you are as blessed as I am, and you should count yourself lucky to have so rare a gem in your life. Just as I do, every day.

Happy birthday my dear, and many more.