30 days of truth {day 9}

{Had lunch at Spark today. Um, YUM?}

Day 9: Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.

This one is so clear.
No one else even came to mind.
And it would be Chanie, my best friend from Jr. High.

She was honestly the *best* best-friend anyone could hope to have.
And more like a sister, if I really think about it.

I guess that's why it was so devastating for me when we grew apart.
She was the kind of friend that you expect will be the maid of honor on your wedding day, and she wasn't even in attendance at mine...let alone an honored member of the wedding party. And I don't know why, but on a certain level, this totally devastates me.
Weird.

I pretty much lived at her house from grades 7-10. Her mom was like my mom. Her sister was like my sister {we even sometimes fought like sisters, awesome} and I had huge crushes on both of her big brothers. Sounds pretty much like I got the whole BFF checklist covered!

She was {and still is} the coolest girl. I think that the best thing about "us" was that we were TOTAL tomboys in some respects, and we could be absolute girly-girls at the same time.

We'd go swimming in the huge mud-hole in the back yard of her 100-year old house, and then get in the bath tub to try to warm up. We'd be shivering in our little shorts and tanks tops, and have the bath full, and the shower raining down on top of us at the same time, and we'd use all of the hot water, and inevitably blow a fuse, and Lynne would have to go downstairs and replace it...

Then we'd get dressed in pajamas, make chocolate chip cookies {and mostly just eat all of the dough} and fresh cut french fries, then we'd lay on the living room carpet while Lynne IRONED OUR HAIR STRAIGHT with a clothing iron!! Ha ha!

Additional favorite memories include, but are not limited to:
*Watching "Newsies" {Roughly a million-bajillion times.}

Dear Boston,
The 8th grader in me still loves you.
Where did you go?
I'm mean, Christian Bale became Batman...{yay!}
Why couldn't YOU have become Spiderman or something and saved us all from the unbearably obnoxious string bean of a walking ego that IS Toby Maguire? WHY?!
Sincerely,
8th grader Lola

*Watching"Little Shop of Horrors" {Roughly a million-bajillion times} because Jessie was going to star in it in their high school musical. It was so much fun. Still one of my favorite movies of all time. {And Jess - you totally rocked it, btw.}

*Catching a ton of poly-wogs in the swampland surrounding Milsite Reservoir, taking them home, watching them turn into frogs, and releasing them back out at Milsite.

*Breakfast at Tiffany's

*Cliff diving at Milsite.

*Making the cheerleading squad together.

*Cheer camps.

* Sitting in Chanie's bed and studying, reading our books for Honors English, etc.

* Obsessively playing {and eventually beating} Myst. Ha ha! Awesome.

*Going to her dad's house in Emery for the weekend, sleeping on the couch, and living on steak and steak alone. {He was SUCH a bachelor, and steak was the only thing he had to eat! ha ha!} We WOULD occasionally go to his work and raid the candy box... so that helped. Lots of MTV {Alanis Morissette, Nirvana, Fiona Apple...} and even more steak... ah, good times.

* Working in the garden with Lynne and Jessie.

*Rocking out to "Madonna:The Immaculate Collection" and "The Crash Test Dummies" and "The Cranberries" and "Alanis Morissette" and the soundtrack from "Dumb and Dumber." Oh...good times.

*Lynne's AMAZING curry and crusty french bread. Mmmmmm...

*Waking up on Saturday morning to find that Jessie had scrubbed the place clean, mowed the lawn, and then made us breakfast! Ha ha! {I smell an overachiever...} ;)

Anyway...there are more memories... {years and years and years full of them} but those are a few that came to me while writing this.

And honestly, we just grew apart.
I could feel it happening, and it scared me,
and I hated it,
but there just didn't seem to be anything I could do to stop it.

And that's okay.

After I had Kortland, Chanie came by to see me {and him} at my parents' house in Ferron. It was so great to see her. We talked for a few hours. It felt like old times. We're currently friends on facebook, and I think she even stops by this here lil' blog every now and again.

She is a wonderful person. She is happily married with two awesome dogs, and she is a trauma nurse in the ER - which is so fitting, I can't even tell you. Chanie always was tough as nails with the most caring, nurturing heart to go along with it. Quite the combination.

So, while I was very sad that we "drifted"... I know that that's just life.
It ebbs and flows.
Everything comes and goes...
and hopefully comes back to us again.

I'm just grateful that we had the years that we did.
Such a gift, honestly.
I would just be ungrateful and selfish,
{and well, just downright unrealistic}
if I expected to hold on to any one
period of happiness indefinitely.
But it was a good time.
And Chanie will always have a special place in my heart.

{And I love the internet... and blogs, and all of it, because I still get to talk to my "other" family regularly. Hugs to you girls.}