The world before boys, babies, and careers...

Every time fourth period, the last period of the day, rolls around, one of my girls bounces into the room shrieking and squealing, "OMG Jessenia! I have not seen you ALL DAY!!" as she barrels toward her friend to give her a great big bear hug. And this is pretty much an every day occurrence.

I say, "Wow. Somebody's happy to be here!"

"You don't understand, Miss! I haven't seen her since like way before school this morning. And she's my best friend!"

And this afternoon I was watching another pair of BFF's (who are so totally on Team Edward) giggle with each other in another class. And I started thinking, where did those times go?

Remember back in the day when you could be with one of your BFF's (because there were a few) and neither of you had to really say anything. Just sitting there giggling or making faces or exchanging glances about an inside joke was enough. I don't care what anybody says about life and true love and fate and cosmic romantic connections. Nothing, and I mean nothing compares to crazy strong friendships that girls can develop with each other. As much as we love spending time with them, you can't replace your best girl friend with a boyfriend or husband. You just can't. It's not that we love them less, it's just that we love them differently-- even if they are our best friends too.

I very distinctly remember having sort of a sad feeling when the first one of my best friends got married. We were at the reception, all the bridesmaids goofing off, dancing, and just generally being dorks, and I looked around and thought, Where is she? Of course she was heading up all the festivities and doing her bridely duties, but the party just wasn't the same without her right in the middle. For the first time really, I missed her. And I thought, one down, the rest of us to go. And it's not that we stopped being friends, and it's not that she didn't marry a great guy, it's just that I felt like it marked the official end of our childhoods. It did. And I had the same feelings when my next BFF got married.

I don't mean to make it sound like our husbands are the bad guys here. They most certainly are not. In fact, my girlfriends have picked probably the best guys out there to marry. So many girls pick complete losers to marry, but not my friends. We were all pretty smart about it. :) And I don't mean to say that marriage is a bad thing either. It most certainly is one of the two or three best decisions I've made in my entire life! But there's just something about all that time you spent with your best girl friend that you just cannot replace, even with the most fabulous husband in the world.

I miss my girl time. This stems mostly from the fact that I moved out of state, I spend most of my time working, and lots of weekends we're out of town. I haven't developed close friendships with too many Texas girls yet. Hopefully that will change in the future. But for the time being, I'm long overdue for just sitting on the couch, being stupid, and laughing till I cry with my BFF.

She's coming down in 3 weeks for a visit and I cannot wait! She makes me laugh. And she makes me do other things too... One time way back when she lived in her teeny tiny apartment, we drank a ton of wine and tried to dance to the choreography in Chicago and I threw up my spaghetti on her living room floor. Then last year, she and her husband came down, and we were playing Balderdash, and she made me laugh so hard I was crying AND I peed in my pants. I'm not kidding. It was ridiculous and gross and hilarious. We do stupid, crazy things. And I love her.

And this one's for the girls.