We started our friendship in elementary school, wherein she would say "headlocks or pressure points?" at the beginning of recess and I would choose and Miss Jennifer Grace would ensure I received the torture of my choice. It might be this activity that led my mom to question if I really wanted to be friends with Jenny, but I did. Granted, my choice in friends up until this point was not all that great-- there was the girl who wouldn't share any (no, really, NOT ANY) of her toys if you went over to play at her house. And I believe I succumbed to the "you can be friends with me, but you can't have any other friends" line from two separate people. And there was the girl who stole my really cool eraser. I stole it back during lunch but then I was worried she would notice it was gone so I put it back in her desk. But my choice to become friends with Jenny was well founded. Sure there were (and still are) the bouts of torture because she was (and is) freakishly strong. And don't even get me started on the licking. But we also made daisy chains and came up with elaborate past life stories and she told me how to spell "October" when I had to write it on the board and froze because I didn't remember how.
We stopped going to the same school after 5th grade. And we both went to crazy (in their own drastically different ways) private schools and commuted and did all kinds of fancy extracurricular activities to try and get into colleges. We still managed to hang out occasionally-- I think I remember going to the Boardwalk pretty consistently every summer. And then in High School we would get, um, dressed up and go to the Catalyst or swing dancing on weekends. For the love of God I wish I had a scanner so I could share how amazing we looked when we got dressed up because my idea of "going out clothes" when I was 15 was a pleather skirt and stripper-high heels and Jenny usually wore a tiara.
In college she talked me through my first couple weeks when I was miserable and homesick and again at various times in the year when those feelings came back. She made me go to my first frat party when she came to visit. She told me to buy the water bra if it really made me feel that good about myself. We both got caught up with our own lives and excitement but we always managed to talk on the phone for ages even if we couldn't be bothered to drive the 2 hours to visit that often. Plus we both had weirdly parallel dysfunctional relationships that we probably stayed in much longer than we would have if we hadn't had each other as a commiserating sounding board "does your boyfriend tell you that you can't meet his friends?" "Yeah, all the time." "Oh, I guess it must be normal then."
And then she told me she was going to have a baby. Over email. And I got mad. Because she told me over email. And, to be honest, because I was jealous. And had my own issues. Whatever. But the thing is, I think I would have gotten over it much faster if it hadn't been her. Because normally if someone did something that bothered me or that I couldn't deal with, I would have called Jenny to bitch about it. I'd vent for a half hour or so, she'd listen and psychoanalyze me and I could move on. Except I had no one who knew me well enough or who knew that was what I needed and I didn't know how to deal with it, so I got weird and awkward. But I knew my feelings were odd and inappropriate so I did my level best to disguise them and overcompensate. And then I did get over it, which is good because Gabey's two and a half now so I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be talking if I hadn't been able to move past it....
And the crazy thing is? We've stayed friends. I think it's pretty amazing that we have managed to do that as long as we have. I mean, there are those people you've known for a long time so you feel like you kind of have to be friends with them but you wouldn't necessarily choose them as a friend if you met them tomorrow, am I right? But even though our upbringings were different and our lives have taken very diverse pathways, we have a lot of odd similarities. We both thrive on attention and validation. We can't concentrate at concerts. We are both borderline (??) OCD. We both have semi-exhibitionist ways and like to hang out naked. Wait, that sounded weird- no, we don't hang out naked together. We both have strange, very real fears of people in large costumes and finding severed heads behind shower curtains. We have similar life goals.
Jenny tells me what I want (to eat, to wear, to do with my life) and she's usually right on the money. She got drunk with me over the phone when I was depressed and hysterical. She knits. She accepts the hard parts of her life with a strength and grace that I don't know if I could possess. She liberally uses the phrase "that's against my religion." She genuinely enjoys ironing. If you ask her to, she will dance for you. She will also spoon you with or without your permission. She generously tips waitstaff and bartenders. She's something like a third generation atheist. She DOES NOT CRY. Miss Grace is at the top of a very short list of people I would pick to accompany me on a desert island (though with her coloring, I think she would probably break my fingers for making her live there). She's made it to 26 and I am genuinely excited about the possibility of what the next 26 years has to offer and what kind of shenanigans we might encounter.
And so Miss Jennifer, I hope you know how much I love you. You are one of the smartest, strongest, most beautiful, sweetest, funniest, classiest, most ridiculous people I know. Happy happy birthday, darlin.
