Wednesday nights

I learned a lot about myself on those Wednesday nights. 

We didn't realize then, and I may not even fully now, but our friendship is not common. I'm not sure if the average human even knows themselves as well as we did at the age of 16. 

See, Wednesday meant youth group. It meant a 50 mile drive to Jamestown and back. It meant learning about Jesus together. And then staying up all night talking about us and them and who we dreamed we hoped we would become. 

And by them, I mean them. The boys who taught us what our hearts could feel. The bad boys who were bad for us and so we felt even more. 

Each of us had one. They were older, they were taboo. They were slightly unattainable and we were okay with that. I'm not sure a girl's heart really recovers from what those kinds of boys can do to them.

Nothing ever really happened with either of us or either of them. We barely talked outside of MSN Messenger and a few hand folded notes. But at the time it was life itself, and rightly so. It was the biggest thing that had ever happened to us. We didn't know what those feelings meant. And we went through it all together. 

Those Wednesday nights we dove in and shared and explored the depths of who we were and what was going on with us. The process of growing up and surviving being a teenager, we figured it out together. We cried and laughed and dug into learning about love at a young age. 

I learned who I was with her. 

We grew up and our situations didn't line up like they used to. And now we are in very different places. I've chosen my path and she is at a beginning of a million different ones that are begging her to choose. 

You know who you are. You couldn't be anyone else. 

Even though we don't have Wednesdays anymore, we've got a lifetime of Tuesdays and Fridays left. I want to live through you the life you're embarking on. We will probably never be in the exact same place again. And all of this sounds just as silly and true as it did back then. But I'm connected to you like no one else. No one knows me in the same way you do. And those nights will forever string us together and you're stuck with me. Not everyone gets a friend like you. I'm so excited to see where you're going and who you will become. Remember, it was either the farm or something besides the farm. And we'd always wonder what the other would be like, but the one we chose would be satisfactory and good and better than okay. Remember that? 

We just need to remember to bring each other along. What we started back then is just the beginning. 

Love you, friend.