Friendship: Mating For Life

     Some people mate for life when it comes to friendship.  They meet a kid in first grade, discover they both love Rainbow Brite, and become best friends forever.  Emphasis on the 'forever' part.  Sure, they make more friends as they move through the years, but they always make room in their life for each BFF they accumulate along the way.  My mom and my brother are like that.  She still regularly communicates with kids she was friends with in school, and my brother has had the same best friend for over twenty years (and he's only 28 years old, I might add.)  They've added to their friend menagerie substantially, of course, and it just blows my mind that they are able to commit to that level of friendship with such a large group of people.  Because, dear readers, I have a confession to make.  I'm a friendship slut.  I'm a love 'em and leave 'em kind of friend.  (Don't worry; I'm not proud.)  It's not that I move on to the next friend, and never think of the old one again.  I just don't possess the emotional maturity to devote myself to more than one friend at a time.  And, as we all change in life, when I would 'outgrow' a friendship, I would usually just go for the amicable divorce instead of resentment-filled marriage.  We would part as friends, and wave happily to each other if we met up in the grocery store, but we wouldn't be a daily part of each other's lives any longer.  This is how I lived my life.  Until I met Slapajawea, that is.



Me and Slapajawea when we first got to Iraq. 
Yes, I'm making a duck face.  I didn't know any better at the time.

     I don't know how Slapajawea and I became BFFF's (extra F is intentional.)  We were civilized with each other from the day we met, but she thought I was weird, and I thought she was kind of a bitch.  (Turns out we were both right, which is why we mesh so perfectly.)  We mobilized to Fort Dix, New Jersey to get ready for our deployment.  One day we were just fellow soldiers, the next we were joined at the hip.  It was very much like that scene from Stepbrothers. 

Dramatic recreation of our friendship forming.

     While we were deployed, our friendship grew even stronger.  (Duh.  Combat zones have that effect.)  But ours was a little different.  Even in Iraq, people grew close with each other, and then kind of moved on to other besties.  Slapajawea and I remained so close that I'm pretty sure our DNA meshed together, giving us both super powers.  One of our lieutenants joked that we were the only couple that didn't break up during the deployment.  We even took the giant leap of moving in together, both of us terrified that we would eventually try to kill each other with the rock we used to prop open our door to the scenic Iraqi views.  (We named that rock Monty, by the way.)  Didn't happen, though.  Old Slappy remains the only person in my life other than my family members that I haven't outgrown.  I don't know if it's because of the deployment that we've mated for life, or if we would have been such good friends regardless of how we met.  I don't really care, though.  And for those who would posit that we've only been friends for a few years, I say this.  I've been friends with my Peppermint almost as long as I've been married to my husband.  And I'm equally committed to both relationships.  Even when shit gets crazy hard (and I know it's hard right now,) I'm going to be right beside her, calling her a hooker, and making her laugh.  What I'm trying to say, Slapajawea, is that I dearly love you, and I would crumple up into a whimpering ball on the floor if you weren't here.  So stay here.  Please.