I'm getting uncomfortably close to 30 years old. 30. I can't even look at the number without my brain refusing to connect that I will actually be that age. It doesn't seem so old on other people, but when I try to imagine that I am going to be wearing this age in a little over a year and a half I begin to feel old and reflective. Someone throw me a cane and my glasses because I have been thinking a lot about the friends in my life who have, for whatever reason, stuck in my mind and heart for (almost) 30 years. Scoot up close to my rocking chair and listen closely. You know I will undoubtedly have to explain to others why they did not make this list. Just figure that if you did not make the list, it means we are hanging out all the time and our lives have not parted us in such a way as to make me have the NEED to reminisce about you.
Oh wait, no one reads this blog. Nevermind.
So, when I think of friends who are special to me, I think first of my friend Pat. I have known this guy since crimped hair and Thunder Cats were cool. He gave me my first kiss at the tender age of 5 (on my ear no less) and was my first "boyfriend". I don't remember much, except that when Tim Rothenburg blurted out to my first grade teacher, Mrs. Rosser, that, "Lindsey loooovvvveeess Pat and that they are 'boyfriends'," it embarrassed me to my very core. I even remember my smirking teacher's response, "Well, Pat is a very nice boy." I am pretty sure scraping me out from under the desk is but a lighthearted visual of how I felt. But she was right. Pat is really, a very nice boy.
One of the best summers of my life included Pat. He introduced me to several of my, now, musical favorites. He is cool like that. He likes all sorts of music. He taught me that there are worlds beyond country music and boy bands....if you can believe it. He really showed some of the nicest, most genuine acts of friendship that were, unfortunately, not always reciprocated by me. I still inwardly cringe at my insensitivity.
One of my most favorite memories was during that...no...okay, there are more than one. Sorry, I am thinking of all the fun times and I can't pick just one! Okay, probably sitting in his little car in the front of my parent's house talking for hours and hours. I was there to be dropped off, but we, apparently, had a lot to talk about. I remember there being a beach ball and a giant stuffed Orca Whale involved. He always had tons of weird stuff in the backseat of his car. Oh yeah, and collateral chicken, I believe, was exchanged that night. Hm. I wonder where that chicken went.
Anyway, the other nice memory I have involved our friend Gus who, I have no idea in this great day and age of Facebook, what has happened to him. If there is a place to fall off the face of the earth, I believe he must have found it. So, I was out with Pat and Gus, I don't remember where or when or what, but as they were driving me home (we all lived really close to each other) I started getting a fever and was sick. I was shivering in the backseat and, Pat's backseat being the bottomless pit of "stuff", there was a blanket so I was huddled under it. When they successfully got me home, they both told me to get out of the car and proceeded to make a "Lindsey Sandwich" to keep me warm from point A, the car, to point B, the house. I am pretty sure I just laughed the entire time. It was a very nice gesture. Nevermind that they came over the next day while my parents were gone at work to make me soup and saltines while I sat on the couch thinking they were nuts. Anyway, this and a dozen other stories I could tell. I should totally write a memoir.
The next person, naturally, is my friend Brooke. She is so creative. When were were but little tikes running around Collier Elementary, she was my very best friend. While the other girls wanted to dance behind the ramada or invoke the boys to chase them, Brooke and I would walk around the playground interviewing people with sticks. I was weird, okay? But at least I had someone to be weird with. We would make up elaborate stories about ghosts who haunted the playground and who, I assume, are still there today. Oh, and when I say "WE" it was mostly Brooke and her creative mind. I just lived in her imagination.
Throughout the elementary years, we spent a lot of time together and even published some awesome books for their prestigious "Kid's Corner" section of the library. Jealous are we? You should be. Our friendship also birthed the infamous "Why Guys" who continued on through middle school. (And if you were thinking I was an awesomely popular middle schooler based on who I am today, well, you'd be horribly mistaken.)
I remember being jealous of how quickly she could read, how precisely she could type, and how easily she could spell....correctly. She was always the one playing Oregon Trail in our little closet of a computer room first, because she always finished her typing exercises before anyone else. I was always included in her Oregon Trail wagon attendee list....but darn it if dysentery always sent me to an early grave.
She was always very at home in nature. When we'd go play at her house, she'd show me how to mix food coloring and sugar together to make a magical concoction of...magic? I can't remember what it was for, but we'd skip around sprinkling it on different plants and cactus. At home, I made my own sugar/food coloring mixture....and I probably ate it because I was perpetually fat from age 9 to 13. Mmm...pure sugar....
I loved being outside and hanging out with Brooke, because she so obviously loved being outside herself.
To be continued.....my kids are up and they are pulling at me for attention. So sorry sweet blog...thus is the life of a (almost) 30 year old mom.
Next up: Nicole, Laura and Megan
i can't wait for the next installment. ;)
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