Happy Birthday To Me

Thanks to all who have wished me a happy 24th birthday. I am now officially 24.

However, I feel more bummed out than I ever have been, because of one thing.

Girls make best friends. It's what they do. Girls need a pal to pour out her secrets to, who, in return, will pinky-swear to keep them to herself and take it to the grave. Girls need to get giddy about boys and gripe about homework. Then they grow up to be women, who need to get giddy about lovers and gripe about their careers. The female species need best friend(s). I have had many best friends in the past. I lost many because I moved or they moved or we begin to hang out with different people and fell out. But I thought I had found my other half, platonically speaking, when I met Crystal.

Crystal is very different from I am. She's outgoing, with a sparkly personality. An excellent conversationist; even her small-talk is effervescent with zeal. She's everything I want to be that I am not. She's able to say "what's up" to a homeless guy (a scary, grungy looking one, no less) without blinking an eye, and even though she's so sweet and friendly, she's got the dilligence and the determination of no other. She lets no one tread on her, and she doesn't take crap from people. She's got more balls them many men I know.

Even though we have polar personalities, we some how clicked. We finish each other's sentences. When I start saying, "you know when something something something...." without any sort of antecedent, she says, "hell yeah, I know!" I really believe that we can be "friends forever" (for the lack of a better phrase!). If her moving to Iowa and spending 11 months a year there hasn't caused us to fall apart, I don't think anything else could. Thanks to wireless providers who offer free long distance and unlimited nights and weekend, we have kept in touch.

We don't have much memories to share. It's sad. We became friends during our senior year in high school. I was a nerd and she was on the tennis team. She hooked me up to tutor half the girl's tennis team! But by the time we committed to being best friends (this is more commitment than a boyfriend could ever pose on a girl), she was just half a year away from moving away to Iowa. She visits about twice a year, but I'm always working or going to school, and we can hang out in the evenings, but we can't spend too much time together. I think after years and years of saying that we should go to Magic Mountains (Six Flags), we finally did, but it took us over two years to plan and coordinate our schedules.

We don't have memories of thousands of shopping excursions. We don't have memories of hanging around on the beach every summer. We don't have memories of sitting around on a cafe, just catching up with our own readings. We don't have memories of ever hitting the library together to study for finals. We don't have memories of going on a double date. We don't have memories of taking a yoga class together. We don't have memories of going on a road trip together.

We don't have the things that many other best friends have, but we have other things. For example, literally the minute we begin each of our birthdays, we call each other. I would call her on June 9th, at about 10 PM here (which would be 12 AM June 10th in Central Time where Iowa is), and she would call me on July 31, 2 AM Iowa time, which would be 12AM PST. Just so we can be the first to wish each other a happy birthday on that very day. Just one of the things we did. But today, I didn't expect a call from her. I hoped to, but I didn't expect it.

I wish I knew what is going on. I know she is alive and fully-functioning. She had a situation with her family, and she wasn't talking to them. I've been trying to get her to call them. Maybe I had pressured her too much. Maybe it was just part of the "not-calling-home" disease that spread.

Whatever it is, I'm not about to find out. It's 12:19AM on my clock, and she hasn't called. She hasn't called in weeks. Why haven't I called, you ask. I have. I've called and called and called, and left messages after messages. She sent me a text message a while later -- I didn't know it was from her, because, as I had mentioned, my crappy Nextel phone doesn't show where the message came from. She wrote, "Sorry 4 not calling. Will call u soon. Please forgive me. Thank u for everything." It took me a while to realize that my bestfriend was the sender of this message. I mean, would you expect that sort of message from your best friend? I shouldn't have to read that from the closest non-blood-related person on earth. Please forgive me? Thank u for everything? It almost sounded like a good bye.

She was originally supposed to come home for her summer break in August. I was going to tell my boss I will be taking my vacation when she comes, but I don't know if she's even coming. A few weeks ago, I was mad. Fucking horsecrap I was mad! I was angry with her for ignoring my calls. By last week, it had soured into disappointment, and today, it has simmered into grief and intense sadness.

I think she probably knows that I will have had a lot of negative emotions toward her bottled up now, and with it constantly growing, it will be harder for her to build up the courage to call me. I also think that if she read my blog more than once in her lifetime, she will know me better. It may not be a correspondence between us, but it is where I display who I am best.

Crystal. I cannot forgive you. I cannot forgive you, via request by text message. I am not like voting for the American Idol. I simply don't accept forgiveness requests by text message. But you know better than anyone, that I strongly believe in our friendship. That I, think our friendship, is a given in our lives. It's an unconditional given that cannot be impacted by anything like this. And you know, better than anyone, that I am always here. Always. And when and if you decide to call me and decide to make things right, no forgiveness will be necessary -- because I have been and still will be your best friend. I have given you a guarantee before on our friendship, that it will not expire. It is up to you to believe.