Friends.

Isn’t it funny how sometimes someone will come into your life, under strange, random circumstances, and at first you don’t really know why God has brought them to you, until you don’t have them around anymore?

A few years ago I had just graduated from the University of Oregon, I had my degree under my belt and I was gonna change the world. I was going to be a social worker, with an emphasis on working with foster children, everything from placement, to drug and alcohol counseling. It was my duty, and it may sound silly, but it was my “attainable dream.” My real dream was to write for National Geographic, but I soon found that I relied way too much on spell check to pass the introductory grammar class for the journalism major. I can’t spell to save my life, oh how grateful I am to live in the day of spell and grammar check!

Anyhow once I realized that social workers didn’t make enough money to pay the mortgage, I decided maybe I would put my dream off and get a job as a customer service rep at a landscaping company. I do love landscaping, after all. And so I started working and met one of the most wonderful, amazing people in my life.

I only worked there for 5 months, hardly enough time to learn computer systems, regional maps, or even how to transfer calls appropriately, but I did learn about love and true friendship. Catherine was from Australia, she’s funky, crazy and oh so wonderful, even in her procrastination at work I admired her so. But unfortunately I moved back to my hometown to start a new life, and then she moved back to her hometown in Melbourne, Victoria in Australia.

What is so strange about our relationship is that we have hardly spent time together, I mean physically, we’ve always had a distance between us, but it is only physical, in our hearts we are as close as close can be. True soul mates, if you will. Not in a sexual way, of course, but in a sisterly way. She’s the type of person who could come in and go to the bathroom while I was brushing my teeth. She’s the type that I would never feel uncomfortable changing my clothes in front of, or talking about my biggest, deepest, even darkest secrets of my life.

And so I wonder, why on earth are we on opposite sides of the earth? Well, life has just taken us in different directions, it’s not an easily answered question, I ponder it most days, well okay, I ponder it every day.

We may not be positive about the future, or even the present, but I know that we will always be best friends. I know that I can call on her any time of day (which is wonderful because for the life I me I still can’t seem to get the time difference) and I know that if I needed to see her immediately she would do anything in her power to get to me. I hope she knows that I would do the same for her.

Our country codes are different, and there is a 15 hour plane ride that separates us, but what is 15 hours and thousands of miles amongst best friends…not enough to keep them apart. And so as I write this I know the answer to my original question, God brought us together because I had a Catherine shaped hole in my heart, only she can fill it.

And so on today, her 31^st birthday I want to first thank her mother Liz for bringing her into this world, second, thank God for bringing her into my world, and third thank her for staying there.

Happy Birthday my dear, sweet Catherine, I pray we will get the opportunity to share the next 31 years of our lives together, and hopefully one day we can celebrate special days together, in the same country, state, city, town, home, room, and on the same couch…watching “The Village” even though I can’t really stand that movie, but well, that’s just how much I love you.