TDTL Day One: Your Best Friend

First day of Thirty Days, Thirty Letters (or...TDTL as I'm abbreviating it on the post titles, since it would be too long of a title otherwise)! I want to preface this letter with saying that I have many best friends and I love them all dearly, but I didn't want to write ten or twelve different letters today. So I went with the best friend I've known the longest, the one with whom I have the most history. Please feel no offense if I didn't write to you...it doesn't mean you're NOT one of my best friends...it just means you haven't known me for eighteen years (I know you're relieved).


-------------


Dear Tracy,

I've known you so long that I can't even recall the day we met. I know it was probably the very first day of kindergarten. Looking back across nearly, what, eighteen years, it amazes me how far we've come. We started out as classmates and acquaintances. We were soon fellow Girl Scouts in Troop 1203 (ah, good times), bonded together in the troop by our similar lack of popularity. From there we went to friends, to fellow bandies, to best friends, to nearly sisters. To inseparable.

The adventures we've had are many. The laughs we've had are innumerable. I truly don't know what my life would be like if you weren't in it. Girl Scouts was full of fond times and cherished memories--Indianapolis, COSI camp-ins, Thinking Days, day camps, camporees, and our many luxurious mid-winter mother/daughter lodge camping trips. Marching band was the same way--no busses to get to States, marching in a foot of mud, football games, contests, freezing rain, leadership retreat forts, Wendy's and Steak & Shake outings, screaming obnoxious cheers until we were hoarse.

You're the friend I've known the longest and who knows me best. You're the one who tolerates all aspects of my nerdiness and brings me back to Earth easiest. We laugh. We cry. We've fought. We don't always see eye-to-eye. But I know that, no matter what, you'll always be there, because you've always been there. I can ask for nothing greater.

You've changed me "for good."

Thank you for that.