Meet Amber. She's been my long-time best friend. She really is the best. Getting together with her always reminds me of how far we have come. We've known each other since first grade, which means our friendship has survived some very precious and terrifying years. We experienced extreme feelings of ecstasy, jealousy, nuttiness, happiness, and hurt in junior high. AND braces and vicious acne. We went through those exact same things in high school, but found that each feeling came quite a bit deeper the older we became. Together we came to terms with who we were. We've watched each other discover God, individual passions, and the beauty of life itself. And today, we have survived almost four years of being best friends half way across the country.Though we don't see each other much, each time we get together I am reminded of how precious and sacred our long-lasting friendship is.
But a friendship is always growing isn't it? That might be one of the most frustrating and beautiful aspects of friendship. Amber and I are still learning how to be honest and vulnerable with each other. When we were little, I was jealous of the big bows her mom decorated her hair with and I thought she was one of the prettiest little girls I had ever seen. I was jealous of her when the guy I liked in middle school had feelings for her. And now I'm jealous of anyone who gets to spend time with her on a daily basis, because she's wonderful to spend time with.
Like a lot of girls our age, we get together to talk about what's important. And then we get down to what's really important... men. We rant, we confess, we scowl, we laugh, we obsess, we question, and we pray about the males who have made their way into our lives. We've gone from being obsessively giddy and overly romantic, to liking the same guy and hating each other, to seeking pure and Godly relationships, to talking about the ins-and-outs of relationships and how incredibly more complicated they are than we ever anticipated, to wondering whether or not testosterone fits into our future at all. I hope your thoughts on relationships have progressed as ours have, one way or another.
