My BFF announced herself at a superbowl party, maybe six years ago. We'd spent a fair bit of time together as friends-of-friends, acquaintances grown closer, and at the beginning of what we both hoped was a real friendship. I am ever grateful to her for recognizing it as the friendship it has now become.
We could be really good friends. BFFs. Shouted over shots, beers and Todd-nado, who was yelling GET SOME!!!! in my ear.
My heart lit up. Sometimes you say things over drinks that are exaggerated, overly enthusiastic. This time, we recognized and declared a truth. We could be really good friends. BFFs.
From that moment in Queens Pub, Erin is family. I've adopted her parents, her childhood dogs, her in-laws, as an extension of my own familial tree. And our friendship has made me a better person, a better friend. I am so lucky to have this amazing woman in my life. She is incredible. Beautiful and loyal and smart. Funny as hell.
Erin drove home to Michigan from Washington, D.C. (three times) to take care of me when I was pregnant and right after I had my baby. She's cleaned the dirtiest rooms in my house. She snuck in and did the dishes and cleaned the stove grates when I was so pregnant I couldn't do dishes for more than a few minutes at time. She called me on hogging my pregnancy and helped me figure out how to confide in her, how to ask for help.
She's teased me out of my most childish moods. She's held my crying daughter. She cleaned up the upstairs bedroom, transforming it from the cat's lair to a nursery.
She's loved me through my most insecure, stubborn and reticent moments, when I am hardest to love.
She has helped me see the friendships all around me. The whole GR crew has become family because Erin has helped me understand all that love. I have new bravery to respond, reciprocate. On my own, I would have told myself that there was nothing special there. Convinced myself that those friendships were acquaintances, people who were being nice to me because they were good people, not because they truly saw something in me. I would have let myself be too busy with work and the insignificant details of life to commit to those friendships. I would have invented obstacles to keep these friends from getting too close, just in case they didn't REALLY like me and they were just being polite.
This would have been a huge loss. And frankly, just plain stupid. Good god, my insecurity must be maddening to the people who love me.
BFF, thank you for recognizing and declaring our friendship. Thank you for sticking with me when I get my priorities messed up. Thank you for loving me and Kevin the way you do. Thank you for taking care of me. Thank you for being you. An incredible and strong woman, a loving mamma and wife, a loyal, honest and true friend. I love you. For realsies. Forever. No matter what.
xo
PS, your sunglasses are on my microwave, and I found a tiara on top of the vitamins.
PPS, the nursery is SPARKLING in the sunlight. Thank you so much for cleaning it up.
