LYLAS

LYLAS! My friend Megan wrote a post on this topic last year. I laughed when I read the little acronym because I truly had almost forgotten about those cheesy sign offs for many a girls' notes to their girlfriends. Love you like a sister. (I wonder...is this now used in the texting world?)

Well, I have a sister, so to use that term with a girlfriend is not done so lightly. Yet, I have used it...with Megan. Megs has been my most loyal and faithful friend since the eight grade (that is 19 years if your counting), and today is her birthday. It is my job every year to remind Megan that no matter how you slice it she is older than me. Older than my by three little days, but it does make a huge difference now that age is more of a reminder of our gravity driven mammary glands rather than obtaining a driver's permit.

Megan and I became close after simultaneously realizing that we were drastically different than the other girls in the large pack of boy crazed cheer leading types in which we mysteriously found ourselves. I use the word 'close' because Megan and I are, in some ways, as different as night and day and in other ways more alike than sisters. It is those differences that I believe have helped our friendship survive over the years. When I am feeling lost and need a little reminder of who I am and what I am made of, I only need to cling to Megan so that she can be the Yin to my Yang.

There is nothing quite like a friend who's wiped your tears (and snot) away with her bare hands when your heart has been broken, a friend who eagerly blends into my fun, crazy, and dysfunctional family, a friend that can open your mind to different ideas and perspectives while genuinely respecting and listening to the dissenting opinion, a friend that loved you even when your hair was the color of a new penny, a friend that will sit fully clothed in the bathtub with you while you laugh, cry, plot and dream, a friend that will never be too old to Bogey board with, a friend with whom you can sit in comfortable silence, a friend who is wrapped and woven into so many of your memories that looking at her makes you feel like you have come home, a friend who makes you want to be a better person so that you can be more deserving of her friendship.

Megan and I have celebrated many of our recent birthdays together. I am not sure what to do without her this year. You see, my Megs has met an incredible man and has moved to frickin' Michigan to be with this new person who can make her eyes light up like the moonlight bathing the waves on the sand. I have plans to make the trip to experience her nirvana, but I won't be able to make it this year for our annual birthday get together. Our annual get together involves only Megan and myself, good music, better food (organic and humanely raised), and many trips down memory lane.

Happy Birthday my friend. I love you...always...like a sister.