I have been fortunate enough to have more than one very close friend throughout my life. If there truly is such a thing as “soulmates,” I have two. No, they are not romantic partners. They are friends that I have a weird psychic and/or physical connection to. I’m writing about one in particular today.
I’ve known Kay my whole life. She is actually a relative. Her father is one of my mother’s cousins. Physically we both have brown hair and green eyes, but the shades of both are so different it never dawns on anyone that we share the traits. That is where our physical similarities end. She was stacked by the time we were 12. I had to gain 30 pounds in my late 20’s to even get boobs. Then I realized she was right- they are a pain in the ass- but that’s another story for another time. She hates high heels; I wear them on a regular basis. I don’t think she would ever be caught dead with anything pink in her possession, clothing or otherwise. I’m pretty sure a quarter of my wardrobe has some shade of pink in it. Needless to say, there isn’t much clothing swapping going on there.
Our outer shells are very different, but the gooey, messy stuff that makes us human is very much the same. We might as well be sisters. Somehow I just know things when she has something going on. Kay is the same. Many, many conversations have started with one or the other saying “What’s up? I know I needed to call you for some reason.” It doesn’t have to be a bad thing, either. She called me recently to tell me she is pregnant. My gut already knew. Ironically, she is due right around my son’s 11th birthday. She and I were born just weeks apart, in the same year, and our children will share close birthdays, just 11 years apart.
The bond between us in not just mental, it’s also physical. We share a very odd array of “ailments,” if you can call them that; everything from migraines at the same time to asthma and “women troubles.” In college, I came down with a very bad case of mono. Half a continent away, Kay had it, too. We hadn’t seen each other in a little over a year, but we both had mono. How does that happen? When Kay told me she was pregnant, she told me she was concerned because her kidneys were not functioning properly and it could cause an issue for the tiny life she had been waiting four years to conceive. Strangely enough, I had been dealing with a kidney infection that began around the time she conceived. I’m still having kidney problems, and I don’t expect they will clear up until around our kids’ birthdays. As I told her “I would give you one if my kidneys, but they would be of no use to you until we both get better.”
There are few people in the world that I love more than Kay. I can tell her the most outrageous thought in my head and she doesn’t judge me. She knows exactly why I think what I’m thinking and feel what I’m feeling. She’s always there to catch whatever has fallen apart when I date yet another loser, and she does it without saying “I told you so.” She watched as I dealt with having a child with autism and never, ever questioned if he really had a problem or if I was a crappy mother. She just listened and supported me.
Kay is dealing with her own problems these days, and I am trying my best to be there for her. I’m coming up empty in solutions, though. I feel like I should be the rock for her that she has been for me, but I don’t know how. I can’t even begin to imagine waiting to conceive a child only to find out that my own body is causing problems beyond my control. All I can do is listen and tell her I’m there to do whatever she needs me to do. I should tell her I love her more often, but neither one of us is outwardly squishy like that. We weren’t raised that way.
Oh, hell with it. I love you, G. You are more than family and friend to me. You are part of me.
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