If We Want a Garden We're Gonna Have to Sow the Seeds

Life does not often bring you friends. Life brings you people. People who you meet at a party or at a concert or church or the grym. They're people you talk to you. You can talk about the weather, or theology, or your favorite music, or how you got to be so good at that one exercise. Easy conversations that you can have with anyone. Hardly deeper than the weather.

Those people are easy people. Easy conversations. Easy acquaintance. Easily forgotten. You'll meet a million in your lifetime. You'll forget 999,853 of them.

Then there are your once-in-a-lifetimes. You get maybe three of them. And that's if you're the sort of person with your antennae out for the biggest love in the room in every room you're in. Or if you're lucky enough to cross paths with someone else who has the heart antennae. And you'll know it when you feel it.

Call it Fate or Lady Luck, or some magical casting of die. Whatever you want to call it, some of us get a Sarah. And you're only going to ever get one. They talk about soul mates like romance is the end goal. I think you can have all kinds of soul mates. The way my Mama talks about her aunt, that's a soul mate. The way you hear about twins and their love, that's a soul mate. Sometimes, you hear about romantic soul mates. But sometimes, you get a person, unlikely a match as it could be, and they're your soul mate. I think you can get more than one. 

I've lived some time. I've never met anyone so unconditionally loving because she's felt unloved. Someone so unconditionally accepting because she's felt unaccepted. Someone so kind because she's seen the cruelty in the world. She falls in love the moment she meets people and man, you can feel it. It's like putting on your favorite sweater on the first chilly day of the year and finding $20 in the pocket. It's like a warm bed and a cool pillow on a cold night when you're so tired you can barely move. It's your first sip of morning coffee when the coffee is perfect. It's the comfort of picking up your favorite novel for the hundredth time. She's that moment when it's sweltering in July and you stand under a big, old oak tree and from nowhere, an icy breeze breathes by and you think to yourself "this is what life is really about" as the air cools you in a moment. She's the best moments of life personified.

Y'all, she glows. She's so fucking pretty. She's got this amazing thick head of hair that she wears in an undercut to manage. Not going to lie, I always wanted to do that, but never really had enough hair to pull it off. Her skin is like porcelain. I know you hear that and you kind of shrug. No, really. Clear and bright and just perfect. Every time. Her laugh is the best sound. It's one of those laughs you hear and now all you want is to make her laugh every five minutes forever. How can a laugh be so girly and pretty and still come from all the way down in your soul that way? And you forget about it. But then you hear it again and it's a spell. And her smile. I know you hear that whole "she lights up a room" thing, but she really kind of does it. And it's because she means that smile. And because she's freaking gorgeous. And that's not even what I mean when I say she glows. She just kind of radiates goodness and it lights her all the way up.

I'm not even going to get started on the fact that she's so smart. And talented. And dedicated. And hard-working. And stubborn, but in this unselfish way. The way that won't tolerate injustice.

I hit the friend lottery. I love her so much. And she loves me back. And I don't think either one of us could tell the other anything to change that. I got so lucky. And you best believe I know it. She loves me and she loves my baby and she loves for me. How can anyone love that much?

I say all of these things because it's her birthday. My Aquarians. I hate winter, but I sure lucked out on the people born under that sign. I love her so much and I know she doesn't get the credit she deserves. And this is going to make her cry and I'll hate it. But sometimes, you have to love someone so loudly that it breaks their heart. And they'll go back to those moments of love for a long time after. Love sustains you that way. 

Happy Birthday, my dear friend. I love you to the moon and back.


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