That's What Friends Are For

"...you see i've grown a lot smarter now. sometimes you have to choose and then u'll see, if your friend is true they'll be there with you thru the thick and thin" - Tionne 'TBoz' Watkins

i met a friend in 1995. by January 1996, we were best friends. i could go into explicit detail as to how complete strangers came to be good friends amid a flurry of activity that included a boy band, a paranoid schizophrenic bodybuilder from the country, hotel receipts, a closet, and a chance encounter with a "long lost" cousin, (and some day i might), but i'd get so lost in that story that this blog entry might never see the light of day

did i mention that the bff is a girl. perhaps i should've led with that fact. not that it changes who we are at all, but more because it has shaped and defined our interactions for the past however many years. we don't always talk a lot. i very rarely see her. deep conversations are few are far between. and never have i thought of her as anything less than my best friend. obviously, we've made concessions for the love interests in our lives, attempting to make them understand the nature of our relationship in the most non-threatening way possible, and consequently adjusting how and how often we interact

alright i'll get to the point (about friggin' time right?)

she's had a hard time lately, a bit of a crisis if you choose to look at it that way. i've been supportive, downplaying my concern, asking hard questions, and generally trying to "be there". so, fast forward a bit; i was at my mom's house, which is not far from her job recently. she called,obviously downplaying how hard a day she was having. 15min and she comes by, exchanges niceties with mom, turns to me with not one ounce of hurt or pain on her face and says "you're fat"... and we spend the next few minutes, the only few minutes we've spent in over a year, talking about what needs to happen for me to get back in shape... what the (expletive) happened to me being there for her. now she was in full "save your life because you'll die" helping ME mode. script, flipped. and she was being soooo very sincere...

...and i appreciate and love her for it. message: received