A Friendship For The Books

It's one of my favorite people in the whole wide world's birthday today. 

It used to be the one day of the year I could get all sappy on her, but either she's gotten better at handling that, or old age has gotten her more sentimental. ;) Either way, I'm a lover of sap so here it comes. 

I told Kristi that if I ever write a book, she's getting her own chapter. She's taught me so much about friendship, and it would take an entire chapter's worth of pages to express all of it. 

My favorite quality of hers is her honesty. She's not one to sugar coat, and I love that about her. She cares enough about you to tell you when you're freaking out over nothing, over-analyzing the shiz out of a situation, or when you need to ditch the person you're dating because they're not good enough for you in her book. And I've come to find that Kristi's book is pretty spot on. 

It's not easy to keep it real. Even when you really love someone, it can still be way easier to just say what you know they want to hear. Kristi has shown me that real friendship can handle honesty, it strengthens because of it. 

In our almost 7 years of friendship (say what?), we've walked through a lot. We have that friendship where when there's something to celebrate? We're there. When shit hits the fan? We're there even faster. 

I recently joked that when I get married, I need to give my future husband a cheat sheet. It'll read:

When angry, get flowers. 

When sad, give a hug. 

When super excited, have a dance party. 

When hyperventilating crying, call Kristi. 

Any Grey's Anatomy fans out there will get it when I say that she's my person. 

As you get older, you grow and you change. Some friendships get to the point where the original stuff you have in common, you just don't have in common anymore. For Kristi and me, we did grow. And we did change. But something else happened as we got older, we made a conscious decision that this friendship? It's not changing, even if we do. 

And it hasn't changed, it's only gotten stronger. 

I love you, Kristi!! Thanks for being my other half. 

And for the next 13 days, I officially get to call you old. ;)