First of Fifty
This is Marianne.
She just had a birthday, and now she is 50.
And I love her.
But I still have not called her. Why is that?
A) I am a shitty friend.
B) I want to do something special but couldn’t figure out what.
C) I figured it out and was scared to commit.
D) I feel guilt for every past birthday where she has been awesome and I sucked.
….by now it should be clear I am headed towards:
E) All of the above.
… and I thank you for playing.
But yeah, she is the best friend you can have for realsies. She is the kind of friend who will walk straight out of the ocean on a crowded beach wearing nothing but water shoes and a smile. The kind of friend who will pack you up and move you out of your boyfriend’s house before you have even gotten the last word. She is the kind of friend who will put your car in neutral and roll it down the street so when you come out of your boyfriend’s house, where you are most definitely not supposed to be, and you think your car has been stolen and you wake everyone up with your big emergency. To be clear to all of my children who may be reading this, these are just make-believe scenarios to illustrate a point with absolutely no basis in truth.
She is the kind of friend who knows you so deeply that she not only knows all your hopes and dreams, she understands the moments in your life when each hope and each dream was formed.
First to hold my babies, and first to hold my hand through the death of my parents.
As my father and hers, a cop and a firefighter (respectively) might say: “We should all be so lucky.”
And yes, we should all be so lucky to have a friend like this.
But the problem with friends who know you so well is that you now have friends who know you so well. They know you so well they know when you are slacking and not living true to your dreams. She knows I want to write and speak to large audiences and she knows that each time I get close I stop writing and producing… and she nags me about it.
Gentle, sweet nagging. A love nag, really. It is fine; it is good. Having both grown up catholic, we know a little something about the power of some constructive love guilt.
Anyhoo… this friend deserves to be honored and she is so crazy selfless (like her mother, rest her generous, loving soul), that the best way to honor her is to do something good for yourself. So, I am nudging forward, and promising you, my dear friend, 50 blogs for the next 50 weeks, until you are 51 and I am hopefully, bravely, one year closer to my dream.
So, that is it. Apologizing for being a terrible friend who can not make a plan to save her life seems silly, since you have known that about me since we were kids and loved me no matter what. Saying “thank you” never works because you assume that you would always give the most you can to those you love.
So, just I love you.
And I will do by best to be consistent and have them out on the weekend. You can start your gentle, sweet nagging on Sunday morning. I have not been able to wrestle consistency to the ground yet, but fueled by your persistent encouragement and a hefty dose of Catholic guilt, I think I just may be able to give you a collection of 50 brand new blogs for your 51st birthday.
Hell, I will even make it 51.
…
P.S. – Remember that time I was whiny about how there were no songs about girls named Karen and you made me a mixed CD of Karen songs?
I am so not worthy.
