summer sisters

A true friend. Everyone should be so lucky to have one. You know, just like those silly Hallmark cards that say they know everything about you and love you anyway.

That's how it is with Ashley. It's easy for me to try and describe her as the nicest person you will ever meet or that she is stunning and has the most contagious laugh that you will ever hear. It just doesn't cut it. Lately, I just say, "There's no one like her."

Ashley and I have known each other since we were old enough to sit up on our own. We were raised in the same neighborhood on Lantern Lane, two houses away from each other. I was born on October the sixth and she was born on the eighth. We were inseparable. I remember being little and begging with tears in my eyes to let Ashley sleepover just one more night. Doing a snow dance praying for snow days so that we could go sledding together. Making snow angels in my front yard after a big snow storm. Using our sleds down her huge hill of a front lawn. Playing barbies in her and my basement even until we were just too old to be doing so, but it was our secret. Riding bikes with scraped knees and training wheels. Reading Goosebumps and then trading them back and forth. Braiding friendship bracelets. Listening to New Kids on the Block and imagining which one we were going to marry. Running through the sprinkler in our bathing suits for hours on end. Sunbathing with our Cabbage Patch dolls on Mayflower Beach in Dennis. Wanting to be just like her. Envying her for losing her teeth before me. Wanting to spend every second next to her. Singing as loud as we could in the back seat of my Mom's Lumina to any song we knew, and then getting scolded and blinking the beat with our eyelashes. Making up our own secret languages. Hearing from her that Santa Claus wasn't the real deal. Calling boys in secret upstairs in my bedroom. Sharing love notes we had gotten passed to us in school with boxes for us to check, "Will you go out with me? Yes, No or Maybe". Playing softball on warm spring nights with the smell of fresh cut grass. Walking to and from school together everyday, lugging our big bookbags. Loving her parents like they were my own (and still do to this day.) We were inseparable.

I will never forget that summer before we were turning ten in October. She told me that she was moving. Only a few streets away, but it felt like my entire universe was coming apart at the seems. How could she possibly be leaving me? Our relationship never faltered, but we started to change. We were starting to become young women. At one point, time did start to take its toll. Ashley and I started to make different friends. She started to veer in one direction and I went in another. We never stopped loving each other, but we started to become ourselves. It had always been Ashley & Morgan. It started to become a bit different. My parents' marriage was ending around the time that we turned fourteen. Things were a big blur after that.

I don't know if it is the wedding coming up or just "the age" as a lot of people tell me, but I have been sifting through my past quite a lot lately. Thinking about choices I have made and what got me to this point in my life. Have I done the right thing? Would I go back and change anything? It's easy to say that I regret certain things, but in the same sense if I didn't make the impulsive decisions I made, I wouldn't be where I am today. Which is a really good place.

During high school, I lost Ashley along the way. I remember grieving for her to be with me on so many different occasions but was too young to realize that all that I had to do was to pick up the phone. I had no idea what I was taking advantage of, or what I was losing. Ashley was a friend that got caught in the middle of my rough spot. She quietly let me go my own way.

Once in college, we reconnected again. And once again, we separated. This time, I know that it was me that let her down. I let her go her way and I went mine. I missed her deep down in my heart. We were both in turbulent situations. I went to Colorado, she went to California. As I was busy searching for my happiness, she was busy searching for hers.

One day, after finding myself content and ready to get started with the life I always wanted to live, it was Ashley that I wanted to tell about it. It wasn't until about three years ago that I panicked and realized that she was one of the major gaping holes that needed to be filled in my heart. And there she was. I always believed that someday we would be friends again, and the opportunity came. Once again, we came back to each other, though this time it was through other means. My Brian and her Quinn, the men of our dreams. They were longtime friends who provided the means to us getting back to where we left off.

And so it is. We are back to the Ashley & Morgan that has always been meant to be. It's amazing to see her with her husband. The four of us are thick as thieves and spend time reminiscing and laughing about the future. "That will be me and Quinn in eighty years" and "Ashley, that is so me and you." It's really fufilling and satisfying knowing that life truly does come full circle if you just let it be and believe.

So here's to my best friend. The kind of friend that looks at me with true love and smiling eyes, knowing that she knows everything about me and loves me anyway. My heart is filled with love, trust and adoration for her. I am more grateful for her than words could ever say. My Summer Sister.