Fun Monday - Best Friends

Willowtree is hosting this week's Fun Monday all the way from Australia and he wants to know:
"Tell us about your best friend. Particularly things like: where you first met, how long you've been friends and why you think you are best friends"

Holy cow, where to start?

I have three friends. Period. I'm not talking about my mom (hi, Mom!) or my husband. I've had two of them since I was very young, and the third one I've had for 17 years. And they all sort of rotate the title of BEST FRIEND depending on various factors. The one thing they all share in common is that when I need them, I know they will be there. If I need to cry, they'll sit there with a box of tissue. If I need to disappear for a while, they'll wait until I come back. And I do the same for them. These are not acquaintances. These are not co-workers. These are not family. These are friends - people who have crossed my path by virtue of fate or proximity and have stuck for some reason through all these years when we could have gone our separate ways and never looked back.

Liane: Okay, okay - we're cousins who aren't actually related. Her grandmother married my grandfather. Her mom is my dad's step-sister. We pretty much grew up together. She would come spend the night at my house; I'd spend the night at hers. We told stories in the dark, rollerskated in the streets, played in the park and were sad when her parents split and moved to different cities. We didn't write or talk on the phone, but as soon as Liane was back in town, we were back together. We were teens then. Both of us pretty good-looking when I look back at the pictures of us together, though neither one of us thought so at the time... My mother always called us Snow White and Rose Red. Liane got to be Snow White with her dark hair and dark eyes and white, white skin. I was her sister, Rose Red with my blonde hair, blue eyes and white, white skin. Fairytale ladies. We've split up and come together many times in our lives. The usual things separated us. Boyfriends. Marriage. Kids. Homes. Jobs. We'd always remember birthdays, though and sometimes I would call her out of the blue and she'd answer, saying, "I was just thinking about you!" We're back together again. She recently split from her husband, her kids are older and getting their own lives now and she has free time on her hands that wasn't there before. We go to movies, sometimes just visit, and occasionally go have lunch. She makes me laugh like no one else on earth - the kind that just grabs hold of your belly and doesn't let go until your face is red and tears are running down in a mini-waterfall off your chin. It's not like we're great joke tellers - life is just incredibly funny when we're together.

Steph: She came into my life during the summers when I was 8 or 9 until we were 14. Her grandmother lived two doors down from us and my brothers and I were the only kids in the neighborhood (except some boys that lived all the way down at the other end of the street). It was a neighborhood of old people. So really, we had no choice. We'd all get together and play "Rat Pack" which was a glorified hide and seek game in the dark, or play "tennis" in the street. Sometimes, we went down to see the boys at the end of the road and play in their woods or their barn. When Steph and I were around 14, she came to live with her grandmother and we went to high school together. We were both kind of odd people in high-school-world, and stuck together somewhat, but we both had our own set of people we hung out with. She got her driver's license first and she drove around in her grandma's old blue car, which was quite impressive at the time. She drove with one hand - actually one palm on the wheel. Very sophisticated in my eyes. Eventually, she left. She went to Atlanta to live with her mama, got married, got divorced, got married again, had two kids, got divorced and finally, a couple of years ago, got married for the third time - which was apparently the charm. She doesn't really need me anymore, but we touch base through email from time to time and I know she reads my blog sometimes. She's happy - which is what is important. And if she needs me, I'll be here.

Kelly: Kelly is the latecomer. I'd just left my ex-husband and was trying to re-establish myself here, working for a temp agency. Since I'd had some TV experience (and they had no idea what that meant), they sent me out to work on billing for the local cable company. I worked in a small concrete building with a couple of guys, but soon after I started there, the company moved to a new building and brought that office over to the new building too. That's where I met Kelly, the customer service supervisor. She smoked and drank and liked to party. I smoked, drank some and was very shy and unsure of myself. I wanted to be more like her, so when she invited me to lunch one day, I jumped at the chance to get to know her. We started hanging out, drinks after work. She lived out of town at that point, so if she'd had a little too much, she might crash at my place (which I shared with my brother Andy). Eventually, I moved out of there and at the same time, she decided to move back into town. I invited her to be my roommate and we lived together for years. Her boyfriend Bill moved in and we were like brother and sister. When Bill bought a duplex, we all moved over there. But three's a crowd and as Kelly and Bill got more serious, it seemed more and more crowded. So I moved out to my own little space, but we kept in close touch. I was there for their wedding, she was my maid of honor. I found out I was pregnant the day her daughter was born. She is my son's godmother and my friend. There are times when we don't see each other much, but we talk on the phone and see each other at work because now, after all these years, we actually work in the same building! Different jobs, different company from where we started, but we're still here together.

And that's my best friend story.... Three for the price of one - you can't beat a deal like that!