“…Do you hear me? I’m talking to you….”
You are my best friend, you know.
—Not because you ever played ball with me at Rowland, or laughed with me at Greenview— or even rolled your eyes at me through Brush.
—And not because you were part of my first series of “best years” in Columbus or ‘cause we ever interacted in our first adult lives.
But because you are you.
Did you sense it first? Heck, you texted me back on Day Two. Was I “in or out”, you wanted to know. Our repartee? I remember it as though it was yesterday! I recall too heading for New York a week later neither sensing the soon-to-be-rising tide of emotion nor suspecting that just one week hence, on my first best friend’s 63rd birthday, I’d be plotzing at the Roth-Schorr wedding, trying to reach you by phone.
Plotz I did. And drive I did, the next day…across the country…consumed by the healthy compulsion of infatuation and convinced in my heart of hearts that this—YOU—would be something special.
I was right, C.J. Nailed it! Should have bet the “over”.
Never had I dreamed of a friendship like ours: mental, physical, spiritual.
Never could I suspect I’d be so open or so candid with someone who never owned a baseball card.
Never would I imagine I caring so much,so deeply or so quickly. Stacy? Jason? “Slow down,” they urged…all at the time you were telling me you loved that I was taking things “slow and steady”. It was all about the angle, lady—and from my angle there was nothing as powerful as an idea whose time had come.
“…They don’t know how long it takes
Waiting for a love like this
Every time we say goodbye
I wish we had one more kiss….”
I never dreamed someone could be so open, so caring, and so naturally nice…
I never dreamed I could have a best friend that never owned a baseball card…
I never dreamed there was a you.
Timing is everything, of course. Our lives intersected at a time and a place where our values intersected. Our loves intersected because—it’s clear—our priorities intersected.
Plus, there were your eyes.
Blessed, I am, with a myriad of life-long and less tenured friends. I’m very lucky.
—And then there’s you: the yin to my yang.
I thrill like I never have before and play like I never have before and trust like I never have before, frankly, because we were friends first, good friends second, and then fell in love.
Whodda thunk it?
It’s been quoted before: people come into our lives for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. Lady, please take note: you’ve come by for eternity.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
“…Lucky I’m in love with my best friend
Lucky to have been where I have been
Lucky to be coming home again….”
B. Mars
After reading this, I thought for a second you were writing about Snyder, Fenton, Wieder and Ermine…
I know he wasn’t writing about me.
Mark makes a good point.