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October 31, 2005

For my Pammylala

Today is my anniversary. Ten years ago today, Pam and I formed our real bond and moved from "friends because we both knew the same guy" to "friends because we liked each other." On Halloween my freshman year, I went trick-or-treating (for the last time) with Pam, Mary Beth, Andy, NickD, and NickM. I think. I'd known Mary Beth since 6th grade. Earlier that year, she started dating NickM. Then Andy asked me out. And Pam was friends with Andy, NickM, and NickD. So we just started... hanging out. But after I broke up with Andy (that relationship lasted 4 days), Pam and I just... clicked.

It started with phone calls that lasted hours. I usually spent them lying down on the center island in my kitchen. I have no idea what we talked about (other than the hilarity of my 4 day relationship with Andy). But we just... worked together.

Pretty soon it became a foursome -- me, Pam, Mary Beth, and Pam's friend from middle school, Jodi. Jodi lived "far away" but was still part of the group. We likened ourselves to the movie Now and Then, where I was Gabby Hoffman, Pam was Christina Ricci, Mary Beth was Thora Birch, and Jodi was Ashleigh Moore. In fact, the day I met Jodi we saw that movie and decided it right then and there. Each of us had individual relationships with the other three, and we had our foursome.

I think Pam and I spent more time together than anyone else. Mary Beth had strict rules imposed on her that kept her from spending a lot of time with us out of school or talking on the phone, and Jodi lived "far away". It's funny because I tend to base my friendships with people on being able to have emotionally intense conversations with them, but Pam and I were never that emotional together. I was, of course, because I was a drama queen, but our time together was more fun than anything else.

Pam is the one person in my life who I've just had FUN with.

When the end of October rolled around during our sophomore year, I found myself reflecting back and thinking about how far our friendship had come in that year. I wrote a funny rhyming poem about it, typed it up, and presented it to Pam on Halloween, marking it our "first anniversary." I did the same the next year, though after that, the poems fell off. Since then, we've acknowledged our anniversary every year. Some years she sends me a card. Some years we just make a phone call or drop an email. This year I sent her an ecard of a Story People that really reminds me of us (Kindred Spirits).

The thing is, our friendship has been all over the board. There have been times when we haven't been able to go more than a day without talking and times, like now, where we don't talk for months at a time. In fact, I haven't talked to her since the week before we moved, when she gave me the cutest gift ever. There are times when we do nothing but reminisce about how things were during those 2 short years that we went to the same school and times that we exist in the present. Sometimes she's a person I would confide in and sometimes I feel so distant from her. I take pictures of where I live whenever I'm out of Minnesota just for her (even though I'm pretty sure she doesn't remember that this website exists).

She remembers a person I sometimes wish I never was and sometimes wish I could be again. She knows my ugliest stuff and has seen me be a total bitch. She was the first person I came out to and held our foursome together when we were ripped at the seams. We've never really fought, but we have written stories, had sleepovers, taken hundreds of pictures, gone on adventures, filled entire notebooks with stupid notes, made up ridiculous nicknames, laughed too loud in public, and made more mischief together than I've made in the rest of my life combined.

She means so much to me, and I'm glad we have an anniversary to mark that.

Posted to Nostalgia at October 31, 2005 11:32 AM

Comments

Posted by: Carn at November 13, 2005 05:08 PM