there's not much i can say i've held on to since i was 8 years old.
[i do still sleep with my baby blanket. judge me. i don't care.]
but in general, i would say most of the things i had at 8 have been replaced, recycled or removed.
i don't have toys anymore, i no longer have a picket fence bed and zeus and allah both know i couldn't fit into any of my pants from then (not that i would want to. what's up limited too overalls?)
anyways, what i'm saying is the eight year old me and the current day me don't share much outside of body, family and religion.
oh. right. and catherine cawley.
(disclaimer: i'm not big on dedicating blog entries for 2 reasons: 1) it's not very at all entertaining for anyone else to read. 2) i don't want to offend people by not dedicating one to them and bleh bleh bleh. too much work. i'm not up for it.)
(disclaimer to the disclaimer: i will occasionally do it anyways.)
that being said,
i don't think it's very common to have the kind of friendship i have with catherine. unique doesn't really even begin to describe it. but in terms of the things that i think are worth living for-the things that are capable of turning life into life- the kind of friendship that can stand the tests of time, boys, middle school, distance and differences is high on the list.
of all my friends i'm fairly certain she and i are the most opposite. despite our attempts to match our outfits when we were little (overall reference #2) we've never been quite the same. at 8, when we met, we both had a certain little girl likeness. and then, in stead of an on coming train, i must have thrown myself in front of puberty to protect catherine because i started getting awkward, greasy and tubby and catherine remained scrawny and unblemished. sure, she had a boys haircut. but i had training bra boobs and crisco in my hair. very cute.
it doesn't seem like it was that long ago, but years and years past and catherine and i only continued to get more opposite. i stopped growing in 5th grade, catherine did not. i fell on my face once trying to kick a ball once. catherine was an amazing soccer player who often challenged me to races across the church gym. not cool, catherine. not cool. i didn't go on a date until i was 17. catherine had had been in about 24 relationships by then. i was a loser. catherine had parties to go to, friends to see and boys to kiss all through high school. the differences are just innumerable. i will spare you the rest.
what i'm getting at is that we're different. in a lot of ways. and since i moved away to live my big girl, college-esque life i probably could count on one hand the number of times i've seen her. not just seen her, there were times we didn't even really communicate for months at a time. but then i'd come home to visit (or she would come visit me) and we would spend hours and hours talking and laughing. and eating...almost always eating.. and nothing would be different. our friendship never really needed that TLC crap. we've been friends for a long time and i think somewhere around eighth grade she realized i wasn't going anywhere.
and why would i?
if i had let our differences affect our friendship back when our differences first came about i would have deprived myself of a whole lot of life that is very much worth living for; a whole lot of wendy's and cold stone; a whole lot of laughing; one of the most meaningful conversations of my life (where i sat half naked, wrapped in a towel and crying as i retold every hard moment of the hardest time of my life to her. and she just listened.); and one of the very best hugs in the world as i came out of the temple on my wedding day and felt her throw her arms around me and cry tears of joy. and i knew that she loved me. and i knew that she was genuinely happy for me. and i knew that despite all our differences in the past-we wanted our futures to be very much the same.
that hug, that moment combined with knowing that someone who has no genetic obligation to love you-does--that's a slice of life. that is something worth living for.
love,
kate.
lyrics: i'm only up when you're not down. don't want to fly if you're still on the ground.
Man, I love you girls. This made me cry.
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