A Tribute to The Girls!

There was a time in my life that I was surrounded by my girlfriends...lots of 'em.  As a kid, preteen, teen and young adult, girlfriends were the ones that made the days go by.  In elementary school, my bestie, Erika and I floated through the days dreaming of being grown up and having horses...lots and lots of horses.  We would also have dogs and kids, but somehow men didn't fit into that equation.  When we weren't dreaming and aspiring, we were running around on all fours pretending we were the horses that we someday would own and train.  Erika moved a city away when I was in 3rd grade (25 miles is a LOOOONNNNNGGGG way when you are under the age of 12), and though we saw each other, our days of climbing trees, finding shapes in the clouds, whinnying with the best of them...our whimsical days of childhood dwindled.

In the 5th grade it was Becky who became my confidant...and we were truly joined at the hip for the next 8 years.  Every weekend was spent at her house or mine and we both grew extended families consisting of each other's siblings and parents.  Parents were addressed as "Mom" and "Dad," whether they were hers or mine.  We shared everything.  I got my first dog, Penny (her story will surely surface in another post because she is the dog of all dogs) and did my best to convince her parents that Becky needed one too.  When she FINALLY got her own special canine, Celia, we became a party of four.  Oh, the adventures: Celia jumping out of the bed of the truck, still on leash running alongside the moving vehicle; Celia and Penny both running under a small foot bridge while on a walk...Penny gracefully swimming across the little stream below and Celia swinging out from under the bridge, her too-short extendable leash still attached to her harness, not allowing her paddling feet to actually hit the water.  Somehow most of the stories have to do with a dangling Celia. :)  Highschool came along and then we were driving and FREE, basketball, volleyball, "dragging Main," movies...whatever it was, we mostly did it together.  Then graduation came, we had a fun-filled summer and parted ways, choosing rival colleges (Go Wildcats!!!  Sorry Becky).  

College in dorms is a whole new experience.  It just happened that Erika, who was a year ahead of me, was switching schools when I was about to make the leap into my first year of college and we were able to arrange to be roommates in the dorm together.  It was great reconnecting on a daily basis again, but she also had different (probably better) priorities in her second year compared to me in my first year.  She was very busy in her major, while I probably had too much time floating through my pre-reqs.  She was gone a lot, found a new boy who made her gone a lot more and I was at the dorm with a whole floor filled with new potential friends.  In the beginning, I can remember staying up most of every night and wondering how I survived it.  We would all sit out in the hallway, order pizzas and pretend to study.  We would take "study breaks" and walk down to Aggieville to get a coffee, or to Dara's to get a $.52 refill of Dr. Pepper all the while bonding.  As the first weeks flew by, floor unity gradually began to break up and split off into pieces.  For the most part, they were peaceful pieces, but you can never underestimate a floor full of girls in their ability to create drama.  On the other side of all that drama Stef and I found ourselves side by side.

The next 4 or 5 years (what was it, Stef?) were spent hanging out with Stef and whatever rowdy group of guy friends belonged to the guy Stef was dating.  I could distinctly categorize our partying experiences by that ever changing group.  I like to think it was her way of making sure our socializing didn't grow too stagnant.  It was a time of too much drinking, too little sleeping, football games, an occasional breakfast out in place of the class that was supposed to fill that time slot, but most of all, conversation...camaraderie, mending of broken hearts, laughter, tears, tears caused by laughter and just plain ol' good times.  I sometimes wonder how we fit school in there, but we both did...mine was just a little more spread out than hers turned out to be.  Once again, my fave companion for that period of my life flew the coop...off to bigger and better things...the things that come after graduation.  I think it's called adulthood.

After Stef left town I met the love of my life, J...for the first time I tumbled into this crazy thing called Love.  As my relationship with J blossomed, he replaced that spot that was always filled by the "bestie" that graced each phase of my life.  Make no mistake, though, those girls (now women) have never left my life...nor my heart.  We have all grown up, gotten married, scored jobs, lost jobs, had kids, made giant moves from city to city, quit jobs and all in all...we've moved on.  We still talk when we can, though phone calls are interrupted by screaming kids, meetings that have to be had or simple exhaustion and visits happen when someone chances upon an area the other habituates.  Paths cross here and there and somehow we always pick up where we left off, but we always leave off.  There are new priorities...families, spouses, children, careers that pull us away and keep us from daydreaming, "hanging," partying.  Still...there are times when there is nothing better than sharing exciting news with a girlfriend or seeking out a familiar shoulder when news isn't so great.  There are some voids only a fellow female can fill.  There is often a stigma surrounding femaleness...drama, cattiness, vanity, shallowness.  I think any woman who has had relationships as I have had can easily debunk these stereotypes.  Cheers to my girlfriends...you know who you are and I love you very much!!!!!