Before I was me, I was her.................

Recently one of my dear dear friends phoned with birthday wishes. This girl, Jennifer, is probably one of my dearest friends. We have one of those amazing friendships where neither of us really care of we don't call for 6 months. Once we do reconnect, well, it is like we talked yesterday. She knew me "when". She knew me when I was just me. I was not the Queen Bhe, I was not married, I did not have children, I was just a confused teenager. I remember our first meeting, which we have great delight in telling people, from our own perspectives. We both agree that it was in 10th grade english class with Mr. Stone. Mr. Stone was one of those teachers who was VERY smart, quite disheveled, always had chalk on his nose, had a sweep over, and expected greatness from his students............

In our high school there were two public middle school feeder schools, phillips and culbreth. I came from neither! I had been attending a private, quaker school that had classes like basketweaving. Honestly, there was a class about basketweaving (an elective people!) but there were also classes about the hard core essentials. Of course NO ONE knew this at the public schools.........so as we went around the room and said our previous school, there were some chuckles when I said "carolina friends school" (which, on a side note is a cool school to attend now, but back then, not so much). Sitting in front of me was Jennifer. She had this LONG LONG reddish hair, curled so nicely on ends, she had a ribbon in her hair that matched the belt on her jeans, which matched her socks, which matched her shirt. You get the picture right? She was perfect in every way. I soon realized that she was VERY smart, but also a cool chick. She was quite dismayed the day I came into class in sweatpants and clogs. You know the clogs that were wooden, with swede tops? Well, she said "oh, are you not feeling well today?" I thought, no, I am just comfortable (this is typical attire at my old school). She just laughed. Then I would tease her years later (and still today) how when Mr. Stone would ask a question, Jennifer would preface her answer with something along the lines of "well, Mr. Stone, last summer when I was reading war and peace for fun, I did find the story related to the one we are reading currently".

Jennifer and I were not exactly the typically matched pair. She was in Latin club for heaven sake! But our friendship developed throughout high school. We spent our entire summer before college together. We had one goal, which looking back on it was a very strange goal indeed. We had fake id's, we would go to all of the college bars, and we were determined that Jennifer would lose her virginity before college. SERIOUSLY, how crazy is that? That was our goal. Did we achieve it? Well, some things should be kept between friends!

Anyhow, the point is, she knew me before I really even knew myself. She knew the crazy me, who drank, who had boyfriends, who cried over boys, who had girl trauma in college (over boys of course), and she stuck with me. She knew me before I was someone's wife and someone's mother. She knew my Dad. She knew the wacky house I grew up in and didn't care that it was a bit off of the grid of normalcy. She is turning fourty this weekend. She is now married, with a little boy who is just over one. She is a professor, she has her PhD (this does NOT surprise me), and she is FUNNY, and we laugh.

This is for her, and for all of us who were someone before we became the people we are today.