Good Friends

I have met a number of good people in my lifetime. People who have different values and different ideals and different ambitions for their lives. It's given me perspective. It's taught me not to make assumptions. It's taught me how to be open-minded, and it's made me very thankful to them for being welcome to share in their triumphs as well as their challenges.

When I first met KTDID in college, we came from two very different types of life. I was from an economically depressed city where the number of kids in my high school was at least 3 times more than the people in her entire small rural town. She held creationist values. I'd been an agnostic since I was in fifth grade. She was stricken by homesickness. I was thrilled to finally be independent... but she was fun and she was smart, and she knew how to listen and call me on my crap.

Now, we're living in the same building again. We've gotten more similar in our big picture beliefs as we've gotten older. As individuals, we've been broken and put ourselves together so many times, with so much glue, that we're amazingly adept at figuring out where each of the little pieces go for each other and helping to hold those pieces in place until the glue dries again. And in those cases, I can ask for her help without feeling vulnerable or like I'm losing my dignity.

In addition to the emotional stuff, we are able to live together, car trip together, go to Ikea on a Saturday and pack a car together without one annoyed or stern word to the other, share a tight kitchen, bathe apprehensive cats, raise a precocious little boy and have each other's backs.

Those are all rarities in this world, and I just wanted to acknowledge our 15 years of having them.