I get by with a little help from my friends

So I meant to write this post yesterday, but then I spent the morning fighting my computer. Not physically fighting it, of course. More like grumbling and jabbing the keyboard angrily (sidenote: did you know that Outlook has a button that can forward a bunch of emails in one shot but Gmail doesn’t? I assumed that the G in Gmail stood, not only for Google, but also for GREAT, and now I’m not so sure…)

Moving on.

Recently, I came across this quotation and it made me laugh:

It’s funny, because it’s true.

It takes me a while to warm up to people, to be comfortable enough to be myself around them. When people comment on how quiet I am, I usually reply with “just wait till you’ve known me longer. Then you’ll wish for me to stop talking.” Though really, if you comment on my apparent quietness, we’re probably not going to end up being friends because you’re probably going to annoy me very easily. I’m just saying.

Like most people, I’ve had a couple of best friends in my life. My first best friend was a girl named Katie who my mom babysat when we were toddlers (Katie’s mom teaches at my elementary school and she’s one of the sweetest ladies ever!). We lost touch a few years after starting school, but we talked over Facebook a couple of times (before I deleted my account).

I don’t remember having a best friend in elementary school. I’m not sure if that’s true or if my perception of my past is coloured by what I know now – that none of those friendships lasted after grade eight. High school, I had a couple of “best” (close) friends. Almost all of them stopped talking to me during our first year of university because we had a fight (I’ll admit to being at fault for most of it) and, rather than working it out, we just went our separate ways.

As of yesterday, my best friend Nina and I have been friends for 5 years. I think this is a personal record for me (and possibly her as well). Unlike my other friends, I feel like Nina really knows me. As cheesy as it sounds, she’s seen me at my best and my worst. She’s seen me rant and cry, waited patiently (holding a camera) while I fangirled over boys in bands, discussed book-to-movie-adaptations, and everything in between. She’s even heard me scream the words to my favourite songs at concerts (I’m so sorry), and saw me walk around my house in pirate boxers (which she herself bought me) and a tank top. And she’s one of only 5 people who have read the first draft of my novel. She actually read a draft so early and so incomplete, my protagonist still had a younger brother (his character was axed about three months into the writing process).

I’ve had two other best friends of note in my life (Sylvia and Sanela). I haven’t seen Sylvia in almost three years, and I only see Sanela every 5-6 months for dinner or a coffee. I used to see Nina every day at school, and, even though she now lives over 2 hours away from me, we talk all the time. We text, we tweet, we email – we even use phones the way they were intended and PHYSICALLY CALL EACH OTHER every few weeks.

At the risk of sounding creepy or co-dependent, I just need to say: I hope we continue being friends 5-ever (that’s even longer than 4-ever!). Because I don’t think I can find another friend who can watch a Harry Potter marathon with me and not get annoyed when I talk through half of them (could the second one be ANY LONGER?) (also because she has many other wonderful qualities, too numerous to list in a blog post).

It’s great because I have a best friend who cooks. So sometimes, she actually brings me food.

LOVE YOU, MISS YOU, TALK TO YOU SOON!

P.S. I had to come up with a witty, music-related title, but I wasn’t thinking of the Beatles (which is good, cuz neither of us are huge fans of the Beatles). I was thinking of another version, one that we heard the first time I made Nina go to a The Maine concert: