Day Thirteen

Isabelle and I were inseparable in high school. She taught me about Kurt Cobain and snowboarding and how to dye my hair (hers was always a gorgeous blonde while mine would turn out to be some rusty clown color). I taught Isabelle how to disrespect authority with a badass attitude and how to write notes and pass them in class without teachorial detection.

We had nicknames for each other (I'm not telling!). We never had a crush on the same guy, and so we worked our "love" lives in sync without a fight. She was my yin to my yang. We could glance at each other and within that split second be able to know exactly what's going on.

I got married shortly after high school and had my first baby while Isabelle did her own thing, got a nursing degree, and moved away. We grew apart for reasons that are both understandable and shameful. I sucked as a friend back then, and I know I let her down several times when she needed me most. I carried that with me for years, and then when we finally connected on Facebook (just a few months ago) I poured my heart out to her and asked for forgiveness. She did, because she's Isabelle. Beautiful, graceful, lovely.

We hadn't seen each other yet and when I heard that her dad recently passed away, I tried to get the day off work to go to his memorial service but it was my last day at Starbucks and the first day of the Christmas roll-out, and so it wasn't going to happen. But when I was hanging out the drive-through window, Isabelle and her husband and her kids pulled through, without ANY idea that I even worked there.

I burst into tears, so badly wanting to run out and tackle her with a 14 year-long hug but I couldn't leave my spot. I wanted to turn myself inside out with frustration!

But it was there, that glance. I did the classic double-take move and when I recognized her I shrieked her name. Our eyes met and it was like all of those fourteen years poured into each other all at once and filled us up. She knew me and I knew her in that moment, as if nothing had ever changed, as if time had never passed.

Some people come into your life for a season, and then they slink into the shadows without a trace. Isabelle has always stayed with me, because a part of her helped form who I am right now. Badass best friends bonded by the earth-shaking travesties of high school, forming our deep interconnected roots of the strong women we are today.