My best.friend.

Finally got to spend time with my greatly missed best friend Julia and our friend Shelly. They put me at ease whenever we hang out. This is the type of friendship that I don't even need to speak because they instantly know what I want to say, where I want to go, or when to cut someone off who is pushing my buttons.

Rarely in life do you find people who you can get a long with under any circumstances. Julia and I have been friends at this point since we were 15... 12 years!!! I don't really remember ever having a friend that I felt like was my equal and not judging me until I met her. Granted we had some fights, as every friendship does, esp after 12 years and beauty school, but we have always stuck together. If I were to have a sister I would imagine it would be just like this. I couldn't ask for more.

She's always been there for me, we've been through a lot of really heavy stuff. We lost a really close friend suddenly to a drug overdose when we were 20. I found out sitting on Julia's couch at her dads house, which ironically was the last place we saw him, at my birthday party a week earlier. Julia's sister Sara, married my brother Mike 7 years ago and friends then became family. We also became aunts for the first time together, to our nephew Nick. She was my only friend at my secret wedding, and threw me a "don't be sad we made you a cake" party the day of my divorce. I cannot tell the difference between my mother and Julia's mother when they are on the other end of a phone call, and her mom has become a part of our family as well. Getting to spend all our holidays together has made my best friend my absolute most cherished friendship because we inevitably will always be involved in eachothers lives and famililes lives. Losing both of my grandmothers before I was half way through high school Julia's Grandma became one of my favorite older women to spend time with and Julia was always willing to share. I've hung out at every place shes ever lived and done my best to help her when I can, even though my paint skills are questionable, and her house always feels like home to me. When it comes down to it, she feels like home to me. When all else fails and my life is up in the air, there she is, always willing to put me in her passenger seat and take me to Redford Grill in the middle of the night for coffee, dessert, and endless comfort.

We've dicussed how things are going to change as we get older. We are going to go through another round of weddings... at some point. We will hopefully experience our children growing up together. We will most likely end up taking care of our parents around the same time and make decisions about their health and well being. We will watch Nick grow up, get a car, a girlfriend, graduate high school, go away to college, get married, and have kids of his own some day. We will end up being grandmas together. More than anything else, any other relationship, any man or friend that may come along, I look forward to a future with the love of my best friend.

Xoxo