How I love thee, Katie B.

Ten years ago last month I messed around with a boy who was 'taken'. His girlfriend and I ended up hating each other. We lived in different towns, but her mother was my middle school bus driver. She was 7 months older and  starting high school. Some how we ended up the best of friends.

Neither one of us can figure out how we went from enemies to friends to besties.
All I can remember is my sister being her friend and being stuck in the middle. Some how, it led to her and I being closer and my sister backing off.

Before we knew it we were spending every weekend together.

Weekends at her house, playing The Sims from the time I arrived, until early the next morning. Going to sleep, and playing all Saturday. Staying up until the wee hours of Sunday and me leaving when we got up. Unfortunately the family computer was in a room with a hole in the floor. I fell through it. Well my leg did. I screamed, her and her family rushed into the bathroom. There was my leg hanging through the ceiling. The ceiling her father just repaired. We made matching AOL screen names. "Fell through her floor" and "Fell through my floor".

Her "eww" face.

We spent hours in AOL chat rooms. I swear 'hehehe' and 'eww' were the two most used 'words'. At least we weren't dumb enough like my sister to actually meet and date a guy off of those chat rooms!

Club Earth was our Friday night hang out. It was a club for the high school crowd. I managed to get in although I was still the eighth grade. Dancing with Mexicans, on bars, always going to the bathroom together. Accidentally drinking drugged drinks and my father driving us to my house. My mom wanting to rush her to the emergency room. Her throwing up in my bedroom trash can and me cleaning up her and her mess. Eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch the following morning.

Periodically, we'd head to the movie theater. Never with the intention of seeing a movie. Of course when security decided to toughen up we didn't leave like asked. We went to see movies like "Miss Congeniality" which we never heard of instead. Unfortunately the town the theater we would go to had the most snobbish girls. There was an incident with one of them. I stepped on a girls shoe, or had my shoe stepped on, who remembers the little details anyway. The other person, who was stepped on or did the stepping.., got extremely upset, asking me what my problems was. Being very afraid of conflict, just apologized, but it was not enough. My bestie told this girl to just get over it. It was an accident, in a large crowd. Some how or another, my sister, bestie, and I all got separated in the crowd. And I ended up in the arcade. The girl pushed me, I pushed back, we rolled around on the floor, she pulled hair, I got one punch in, we were separated. When the bestie found me and asked where I went and what happened, all I could say was, "That bitch messed up my hair." She still apologizes to this day for not being there to "kick her ass" for me.

Sometime after my 14th birthday we stopped speaking for the 1st time. I had my "old" bestie back and didn't need her. I had my real partner in crime back. I ended up in juvi. When I got out, she was there to tell me I was an idiot. Had I been hanging out with her I wouldn't have ended up there. It was the 1st of many times she told me to stay away from this girl. It wasn't my 1st time getting into serious trouble with her.

When my husband, then boyfriend, got out of prison that May, she was the only one who didn't call me stupid. She was the only one who got along with him. Just one day after his release we went on a mini adventure looking for some castle we never found. She is still one of the very few people in my life who gets along with the hubs. (And they share birthdays!)

In the girls bathroom where we always
ran into each other between class
To the left are the stalls where we
would sneak a few drags off a marb red.

That August I learned we'd be moving to her town. I was beyond thrilled. I'd have my sister and bestie in the same school! I've never been in the same school with either one of them and I was ecstatic!

She repaid me for not being there that night in the movies. She always had my back when people talked shit.

My sophomore year (her junior) we ended up in the same math class. Boy was that fun! She still has the note book containing our "arrow wars" and trash talking (each other) and random notes. It still has the "Nicole loves Tom"s and the "Katie loves Dave"s. Who would have thought we'd still be with them today?

A Katie B. Original.

The best is when I talked her into making a cake for the last day before Christmas break. And she did!

"She ate the whole cake!"

The best was taking a picture that actually made her look pregnant! (And her laughing instead of being insulted.)

The hubs, me, and my biffle on my 16th birthday.

She was always a better friend. Came to each of my birthday parties, while I never showed for hers.

She brought me balloons and cupcakes in school to celebrate my 16th.

When she got her braces taken off, I got mine put on. 

When I got my eyebrow pierced and the piercer used to large of a ring and it became swollen and infected, she was honest with me that it looked like shit.

She has always been brutally honest.

When I tried to lighten my hair and ended up looking like an effing ray of sunshine she told me just that. I did look like an effing ray of sunshine! And I did rock that shit. So well at least 3 girls in the same lunch as me ended up with the same hair color by the end of the school week. 

She thought they looked worse.

My junior year we had no classes, no lunch, no nothing together. I was spending a lot of time with the hubs boyfriend. And she spent a lot of time with hers. I dropped out, moved out, and was partying and working day and night. We only hung out a few times, and spoke by phone a handful of times.

Class of '04.

When we did get together, it was like we were never apart. Sitting at the dinner table in the hubs and my studio apartment, coloring. Going for random drives with my hubs boyfriend, pushing a 1986 television out of his blue van (with the bed in the back). Running over mail boxes. Attempting to run over mail boxes. And stalling. Screaming obscenities in the middle of the 'hood in the middle of the night. Her and her boyfriend rushing to my rescue when fighting with my hubs boyfriend
Without meaning to, we stopped speaking.
Though we weren't speaking she still made sure to give me her senior photo.

Between the time I dropped out and she graduated, we only spoke by phone about a dozen times. She was now living with her boyfriend and his daughter. We were no longer "school" friends. Out of no where she came by. Once. Being the loving friend she was, she wanted to know everything she had missed in my life. I showed her with pictures.

In April of '04 she had called and asked if I knew anyone wanting a kitten. I turned into a giddy little school girl and begged the hubs boyfriend if we could have a kitten. She gave us our Booger, an orange and white kitty who was the sweetest. 

Again, we barely spoke. Just a random phone call every few months. With each call it was as if we never stopped speaking. In 2005 I got married and became pregnant. She didn't believe me. We had been like the boy who cried wolf for years. Only we were the girls who cried "pregnant". We thought we were pregnant every month back in high school. Every. Month. I swear, I don't think she really believed it to be true until my baby shower. 

I wish more than anything I could go back to before my wedding and we could be close in that time. I regret more than anything not making her my maid of honor. She forgave me and came to my wedding, along with her boyfriend, mother and father. Though out my wedding she was there to whisk me outside when I needed a breather. To offer me a few sips of wine even though I was pregnant, just so I could calm down. She danced with me and slammed wedding cake into my face. I still think it was mean. She (and the guests) thought it was hysterical. 

When she became pregnant right after my son was born, I was beyond thrilled. When her daughter was born I couldn't wait to introduce her to my son. As soon as I got the okay, I took him to meet her. After seen all the pinkness, I knew I wanted a baby girl. Something I never wanted before. She laughed. And when I let my 9.5 month old son hold her newborn on the couch, and he almost dropped her, I freaked out instead of her.

Unfortunately, us both being mothers still did not bring back that speaking every day closeness we both missed. We both worked. We both were in committed relationships. We were both just to busy with life. And with that, we still referred to each other as best friends. 

She was the 1st to learn I was expected my 2nd son. Soon after I avoided her like the plague. I couldn't let her know what was going on with me. I couldn't let anyone know I was hanging out with that "bad influence" again. I definitely could not let anyone, especially her know I was going crazy. I couldn't let her know I had been admitted to the nut house, or that I became a heroin addict. At some point during the end of my 5 months of active using, she ran into my father. Who still called her his "other daughter" and he told her everything. It turned out we were living right around the corner from each other. She began calling. She was worried. She said she told me so. She told me to stay away from "that girl" once again. 

The month after I got clean, she became pregnant with 2nd child. 3 months after that, I became pregnant with my 3rd. Soon we were talking daily again. We had pregnant play dates. We laughed at my husband taking 6 hours to make burgers and dogs. We went to each other every time we felt something "weird" with our pregnancies, or when their was a concern at an appointment. Though we lived in the same neighborhood, we still barely saw each other. 

It wasn't until I moved out of the neighborhood that actually seeing each other again really began again. 

Now, we try together at the very least every other week. She is the only one I can completely trust with my 3 children, even while she has her two. She treats my children as if they were her own. She is one of the very few my daughter will go to, willingly. 

We talk daily. Most days on and off all day long. She is the only one allowed to call my house for no reason after 8 pm. She listens to me complain about being a wife and mother and doesn't think I'm a bad person. Because she relates. She knows as much as I can be a pessimist, I wouldn't change a thing. 

When I cried my eyes out to her about my children not having any summer clothes and not having the money to get them anything, she came over with a bag full of gorgeous outfits.

When she asked me to photograph her children's birthday parties, I immediately did.

And most recently, when her sweet daughter fell at the park, putting her teeth through her lip, during on of our play dates, and needed to be rushed to the emergency room, I was there. My three children, her two plus her niece, and our high school friend and her little brother, and I were all there. When her mother came and she told me I didn't need to stay, I did. When she was scared and queasy and her daughter was scared, I was there. Just like she is always there for me.


Always. Even when we were barely speaking, if one of us called and needed a shoulder to cry on, an ear to bitch in, or a heart to care, we are always there. For each other. Always.

Through the hard times and fun times,

The sad times and happy times, 

You are always there.

When I need someone 

to show they care,

You are always there.

When I am feeling silly,

and need someone to laugh,

You are always there.

When my home 

isn't as happy as I'd like,

You are always there.

When my feelings seem

to get the best of me,

You are always there.

When I am down

and feeling blue,

You are always there.

Thank you my sweet,

For always being there.