It takes a long time to grow an old friend

During a brief conversation with my best friend today, one of us brought up that we had been best friends for over 16 years now!!! That number of years just seemed...well, too high. No way have we been friends for almost 2 decades! My reaction was something like, "Seriously? That can't be right...do the math real quick...we met when we were 12 and we are now...oh crap, I guess it really has been that long."

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly time flies by. It also never ceases to amaze me how our friendship becomes more and more precious to me with each passing year. God has blessed me with a beautiful friend, inside and out, who loves me just as I am, unconditionally. We are both pretty much complete opposites - always have been, always will be I am sure. Our lives have been no different - opposite, but you know what they say - opposites attract right? Let me briefly illustrate...

She is shy. I rarely shut up.

She had a steady boyfriend when we were kids. I was always boy crazy.

I went to college and got a business degree. She became a massage therapist.

I moved to California. She moved to Midland, Texas (I know, I win this one right?) 

She got married! Wait, I did too...

She had a baby. I have two labrador retrievers...is that kind of the same?  

She had her first year anniversary...I ummm well, I ended up happily uncommitted.  

She loves the Young and the Restless soap opera - gag. I can't stand soaps.

She hates tomatoes, I eat them like apples... 

You get the picture.

We now live only a little over an hour apart - which although it is far far closer than 10 hours (thank God she came back from Midland! ehh!) - it is still difficult to coordinate our busy schedules to spend time together. But when we do get together, we are like two old hens, I swear...we have so much fun and so many laughs remembering all the trouble we have been in together...and I have the pictures to prove it! But it also makes us smile to recall some of our most memorable "disagreements"...one really big, nasty one in particular, which in a fairly direct way, led her right to the man God made for her to share her life with.

My train of thought that led me to write this blog today essentially boils down to this - God always gives us what we need, when we need it, in His time, not ours. The people, places and events of our lives are part of a much bigger story that He wrote for us long before you and I took our first breaths. I believe this more and more everyday. My life has been living proof of this. I am a lucky girl and am thankful everyday that God wrote such wonderful friends and loved ones like Kayla, in my story.

Garth never did a video for this song, so this is a dorky youtube video I found...but I have loved this song for years and it is fitting. I just wish the youtube video wasn't pink...geez...could it be any cornier? :)