Thankful for such a great friend

Friends are a blessing... but longtime friends who really know you are a double blessing.  I am so thankful that I have one of those longtime friends.

I met Lori halfway through 4th grade when she moved and transferred to my elementary school.  We were instant best friends & almost 38 years later (gasp - did I say that) she is still my BFF.  2 goof balls that were not in the popular crowd but we had each other (& as the years went on our small group of girlfriends) that helped make the daily trials of school life OK.

We'd spend hours on the phone calling each other the second we got up in the morning or as soon as I knew she had enough time to walk home from school.  Our parents were understanding with a roll of the eyes.  We felt at home in each others homes - I loved having dinner at her house since her mom was a great cook & always had dessert after dinner (I still think of her when eating pound cake & chocolate ice cream).  She had the stay at home mom with the perfect house & my mom had started working  & even before wasn't always the neatest place with the clutter of all of dad's antique "finds" at auctions or yard sales.  We'd hang out in her basement which had the sweet smell of her dad's pipe tobacco - playing our records on an old "suitcase" style record player.  She had a sofa bed down there & when I spent the night we'd crash down there for privacy. She loved coming to my house since we had all the new "stuff" - video games, component stereo system, yellow black & white tv in my room, dogs, hamsters, gerbils, fish (we are both critter lovers but her mom wouldn't let her have a dog - she had hermit crabs), & a phone in my room to get into trouble calling people.

Lori was amazing... she's the best potato peeler lol she had too help cook dinner each night but she taught me how to use a peeler - I just knew how to use a knife thanks to my Gram, organizer (with the cleanest uncluttered pretty purple room around), talented piano player (I took lessons but my grandfather's talent skipped a generation to Andrew), so tall, pretty with long blond hair (taking Barbizon modeling at the department store), music we loved (Elton John, Partridge Family & Jackson Browne were favorites - though we had so many) & her hippie style (which I still lean towards today)..  We walked everywhere - going to Greetings & Readings several times a week (Hallmark/book store) for our magazines (Tiger Beat, 17, Cream), cards to send to my Grandparents in Pittsburgh, & special order books (like the Bernie Taupin - Elton John's songwriter - that we had to have  - the photos were very racy I can't believe now we were allowed to buy it lol)... I babysat the little girl next door so I had :"lots" of spending money.

Now it's great having someone that knows you so well and that you can share ANYTHING with without fear of judgement has kept me sane.  I don't have to worry about putting on airs for her or pretending - being real with her allows that honesty to actually heal the way life beats us down.  We share so many of the same interests & laugh at the same goofy things.

Even though we don't live in the same state anymore thanks to unlimited long distance we can stay in touch making a "date" every other week to talk for hours about everything clicking around on Farmville while chatting (I give her tips how to do the new things, post things for her to snag right then,  or make more money) & praying for each other.  I always start my prayer with how thankful I am for this friendship.  These talks are like therapy & I feel so much better afterwards.  Lori is like family & I can't imagine life without her.  Thanks for being my friend.