Now it's awesome.
Sahara and I love to tell everyone that we met as infants, and it actually is completely true. It's not just some made-up story for effect, to show everyone how great of friends we are. We were both born in September of '91, and we met three months later via our parents' Parenting Class. Memories of our early friendship and conversations are a little fuzzy, but I can honestly say that there has never been a time in my life that I have been without Sahara's constant friendship and support. I can't remember a time when she hasn't been there.
In fact, we've been through EVERYTHING together, and I mean everything. We were friends when I was "engaged" in preschool (a supremely boring event for Sahara, because I made her play the daughter and sent her away to take naps, but she still stayed friends with me). We went through a ton of fads together--hating boys, dance classes, being Star Wars geeks, making fun of Romance Novels, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Pride and Prejudice, Bones, High School, and now...College...
We've been nerds for a looooong time. Seriously, if you can name a geeky subculture, like Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Dr. Who, we've probably been part of it at one time or another.
The blessing and the curse of having been friends with someone for so long is that they tend to remember every single stupid thing you've done or said.
Sahara has a whole pile of dirt on me from the early childhood years. There was the time I was "too grown up for candy," the time I always wanted my character to die when we played our make-believe Lord of the Rings game, and of course, the family favorite, "God and my shoes."
I've heard this story so many times, and I don't even fully remember it happening. I mean, I know what shoes the story is about, so it must be true, but I don't really remember that specific conversation. I'll try to recount it like she'd tell it.
Sahara and I used to take dance classes together, from about when we were 3 or 4 to about 10, I think. This was in the earlier years, so we would have been somewhere in the age range of 4 to 6. As a princess-obsessed only child, I had a doting family that liked to shower me with princess-y gifts of Disney Store (or something similar) origin. That particular day, I had arrived to the dance-preschool class with gloriously gaudy shoes that had Belle's face on them.
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| They've gotten fancier since I was a kid. I would have died for these at 5. |
Sahara was, of course, immensely impressed and slightly jealous of these masterpieces of...well, descriptive words escape me even now, but not in a good way. FTD? Glitz? We'll go with glitz.
I was as immensely proud of my shoes as Sahara was impressed by them; in fact, in discussion, I declared that they were "perfect."
"Now," Sahara usually says as she recounts this story, "I was taught that only God was perfect, and so I explained this to Hilary. She insisted that her shoes were perfect, while I insisted that only God was perfect.
"There was a bit of a back-and forth about it for a while, when suddenly Hilary exclaimed:
"Well, GOD AND MY SHOES."
"God and my Shoes" is something of a tagline with Sahara's family. I have no idea in what context they use it, but they're all ridiculously smart people and they probably make it fit somehow. When Sahara and I make a mutual friend, this story usually comes up at least once. I have not yet lived down "God and my Shoes," and I probably never will, but I don't mind. Having a best friend of the caliber Sahara is makes up for all and every embarrassing story she has about me.
Some of my personal favorite Sahara stories are:
-the time she asked a bunch of girls (including me) to marry her, because at the time she hated boys, thought they were gross, and didn't want to have to marry one. I don't think one girl said "yes."
-the time when she showed me how lions hug in preschool
-the time she dug a gigantic hole in the dog yard at her parents' house...and I still don't recall exactly why
-how she asked for Kraft Mac and Cheese every time she came over to my house
-climbing every tree we could get our hands on
-physically becoming cats (in our imaginations) with our other friend Erica
-the time we went to California to visit Erica for two weeks, and Sahara had her nose buried in HP6 every spare moment she could get
-every single time we've ever been shopping together.
-math class in high school with our crazy, crazy teacher
-Being cast in the Last Night of Ballyhoo as cousins with a slightly strained relationship (the other best story from that show is the super awkward first stage kiss between Sahara and one of our classmates)
-going to college together, auditioning for Henry V. That was where Sahara met her boyfriend, out in the foyer waiting to audition. They hit it off pretty quickly, and I just sort of sat and watched them talk about everything. I felt like a third wheel already, and they'd only just met. But it became okay because her boyfriend is super super awesome and they are perfectly adorable together.
-drinking tea
-doing Hamlet and Ophelia together at the workshop where I really met Tanner.
-watching her become a cat mom and defending her chubby kitty while playing with its neck flab.
-and, most recently, at my wedding, where I think she cried more than I did, and I seriously loved her for it. Her support of me getting married was so great and it just proved to me (again) that she is a friend of the highest quality.
(I have this thing where I'm really good at crying for irrational reasons, but at really sensitive times I have a hard time crying because I'm afraid to break face, so I end up feeling heartless. Go figure.)
Sahara is THE BEST of the best friends I have. She's basically more like my sister than anything, she knows me inside and out. I cannot imagine my life without her in it. I can only hope that I have done my part and helped her through her life and its ups and downs like she has with mine. Every tragedy and high point in our lives, we've been there and been through it together.
What else can you say to someone whose friendship is irreplaceable? I am so grateful for her, I love her so much, and I will always be there for her. I hope we'll get to that point in our lives where we're 80 and we have so many more hilarious and great stories that we can look back on.
To you, Sahara, The Best Friend.
& that's Elementary.
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