About my best friend... (She may not want to read this as some feelingsabout her may be shared here...)

I've come to the point in my blog where I want to introduce my best friend, Trisha.  (She already told me I can name her in my blog, so I am.) I love my best friend, but the funny thing about her is she doesn't like to express emotion or feelings, not sappy one's anyhow.  So..................... I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you! (and this is all in a completely platonic way...)

Trisha and me - Easter 2008

I'm pretty sure we've never even hugged before.  As a matter of fact, I remember an evening shortly after my husband had left me when I had the girls and I just couldn't keep it together.  We had been up at the park and I remember automatically driving straight to her house from there.  When I walked in the door with the girls, tears streaming down my face, sniveling and snot nosed... she quickly directed my children and her's to her son's room. Her husband immediately assumed the job of comforter.  He gave me a big bear  hug and just held on to me for what seemed like five minutes.  The craziest part was this seemed completely normal to all of us that he would be the one to hug me while she stood by directing children.  It didn't take her long to kick in and take control however, that's Trisha. A take charge kind of girl...

Trisha is really a very complex person.  She would say she isn't, but there are many layers to her. I could compare her to an onion, like Donkey does in Shrek, but I would describe her more like a seven layer salad.  I love seven layer salad, it's so delicious... but I digress. Anyway, to know Trisha is to love her, or fear her... She is a loyal friend to the end (haha! I rhymed), but seriously...she is. She seems cold at first meeting, cold sounds harsh, but it is difficult to find a word that would describe her "top layer". Maybe guarded, impersonal...  Yet, if you stick with her and dig in deeper, you will see she has rational to her views and thought processes.  You have to dig underneath all of the "toppings" to find what she is really about - lettuce, yep, she's lettuce. No, not really, she's so much more than just salad. This isn't coming out right.

Let me start with how we met. Trisha and I met probably about eleven or twelve years ago.  Our friendship began over a discussion pertaining to a "mutual friend".  Come to find out, neither one of us particularly appreciated this person to the extent they probably would have liked us to.  Anyway, our friendship grew slowly, but over the course of the following year it grew enough that we decided we would move into an apartment together.  This was big, especially for Trisha because she is such a creature of structure and routine.  (I am also, realized shortly after we began living together.) The next year was the best year of my entire life.  I look back at those days sometimes and think, "If only we could be back in our little apartment, sitting on the couch, watching French Kiss  or My Best Friend's Wedding, everything would be right again. My world would realign and fall back into the rotation that it should be instead of spinning wildly out of control." Shortly after, however, we both met our husbands, who were friends of each other, and then, we did what many friends do at that point in their lives, we went our separate ways.  Don't get me wrong, we stayed close, but we moved on to have our own families, jobs, lives, etc.

Trisha and me - November 2008

Trisha and I have since been through all of our major "adult" life milestones together.  We would drift apart at times, but we always drifted back together. We were maids of honor at each other's weddings. We helped move each other into homes. (Well, my husband did my part mostly the first time as I was on bed rest...but I helped with the second one.) She was there for me while my husband and I had our first child. The same period of time when my husband was drifting away from me, blaming me for being a narcosis; my life falling around my feet in shards of glass. Things got better of course and then Trisha had her first child.  I was honored enough to be present for the birth of both of her children. She was there for the birth of Ella. Although, with her second child I will forever have a different bond.  He came just a week before my life fell apart for real.  Being able to be a part of his life and spend well needed time with his family will always be my saving grace.

I love Trisha because she lives in reality.  Not the everything-is-going-to-turn-out-horrible reality, (which is what I generally turn to the minute something goes wrong) , just a you're-going-to-have-to-do-a-bit-of-work-to-get-where-you-want reality. I am the type of person who isn't necessarily naive, but I always want to expect the best out of everything. The world is a good place filled with well-meaning people who all care about each other, hopeful type of person. However, in contrast, my flip side generally expects the worst.  When things are spiraling out of control, or something absurd is happening right before our very eyes, all I have to do is look at Trisha and a secret message is sent between the two of us, "Are you fucking kidding me??? Yep, I'm pretty sure that just happened." I have said before in The Divorce Instruction Book that I went crazy for a time during my divorce.  Trisha is one of the reasons I was able to come back to reality. She put it all into perspective for me, gave her two cents, let me do what I want, and really, has never said, "I told you so". That's why I love her, because even when I'm being a lasagna girl she gets it... (If you don't know what a lasagna girl is, you will have to watch  Clerks to figure it out...)

Trisha had different personalities, and you know this if you've ever worked with her or been with her shortly after her work day. She can be incredibly serious, or incredibly hilarious, goofy, sarcastic, clueless, and even though she may not want you to know it, caring. You would never want to ride in the car with us together, because honestly you would think we hate each other. We bicker like little old ladies , then cackle and giggle because we think we are hilarious. Beside the fact that if we are in a heated Slug Bug contest you will just want to stay out-of-the-way. But Trisha is also extremely guarded.  If you don't know her, she is difficult to read and doesn't get very personal about her own life.  She is a master at keeping her personal life separate from everything else.  I envy this about her.

Trisha and me - July 2009

Whatever you say about Trisha, she has been the best friend a person could ask for during the past year of my life and I'm thankful for her everyday.  It couldn't have been easy for her to have to deal with her own life much less my added baggage on top of it, but she never once acted as if she didn't have time for me, or acted as if any of my "issues" were pointless or irrelevant.  Trisha keeps me in the groove of things, she taught me the mantra, "Get up, take a shower, go to work" when I didn't think I could ever get up and do anything ever again.  She allowed me have pity parties for myself. She would say, "I give you today to throw yourself a pity party, then tomorrow you get up, take a shower, and go to work". That was SO awesome.  I had the right, for one day, to have a pity party.  You have no idea how much I love to throw a pity party. ALOT...

Trisha and me - December 2010

Bottom line is, this probably hasn't come out the way I wanted it to at all, but I am so happy to have a friend like her.  She has been more like a sister to me than a friend this past year, because I'm pretty sure she said some things friends wouldn't say to each other, but sister's would.  She's been honest with me, but she has my back, and she's helped recreate the person I am in the process of becoming again.  So if you did in fact read this Trisha, thanks. You have my undying gratitude and love (whether you want it or not), and my first-born if you ever decide you'd like another child... no, really.... she's all yours...!