The Great Spin Cycle of Life

**Introduction**

I wrote this a while ago but have debated posting it for a while because I don't like showing this vulnerable side of myself, and I just really wanted to do this post justice because my best friend's engagement is SUPER special to me. And I'll admit I'm wary of posting this bundle of emotions! However, it's these parts of myself that are worth sharing, so I'm sharing this today.


Today, I got a phone call from my best friend in the whole world - she's engaged! 

ENGAGED!

And would I be her bridesmaid?! Well of COURSE! That's been the plan since, well, forever! This is the time of our lives we've been rehearsing in my backyard's playground-wedding-venue since young childhood. Happiness brimmed over in our conversation. Plans for the future, disbelief, excitement and nostalgia and LOTS of questions for her... AHHHH! AHHHHHHH!!!! 

Plain and simple, it's overwhelming as HECK! It's amazing and wonderful and happy... and tears of happiness welled up in my eyes as I congratulated my best friend.

But, upon hanging up with her, I promptly burst into tears. Nostalgic memories of the little eight-year-old girl that brought whoopie pies to my house as a "welcome to the neighborhood" offering flooded my mind.

A decade ago, we were nursing baby dolls and daring each other to pee in the woods. We had yet to experience a world of flat-irons, text messages, dating, depression, romance, disappointment, late night news channels, insomnia, anxiety, politics, career paths, diplomas, dieting, break-ups... and the list goes on. These were all mythical, distant concepts that we saw snippets of through older sisters and parents and books we were too young to read.

It's a dark, utterly terrifying world out here, one that we knew very little about from our "secret garden" of our backyards. To me, the extent of the world that I desired to know was the end of a short path through the woods leading to her house.

Our sweet friendship sustained my happy childhood days, grew me emotionally into someone who could connect with others, taught me many basic social skills (like calling people before showing up at their house) and was, in fact, a crucial aspect in developing the woman I am today.

I owe much to this best friend! And it's been an exercise in "letting go" watching her branch out into a successful, accomplished, lovely woman - whom I rarely see these days except through sound bites of voicemails, skype calls... and that thing we both used to think was so uncool and conforming, texting.

This post does not have a clear beginning and end - there's really not a point that I'm trying to get at it. Today is a day for lots of feelings. Feelings. Those vague, wishy-washy things that can be so flighty and fleeting and yet run deeper and stronger than words can express. There are many feelings that cross my path during the day, feelings that blow like a breeze over my mind. And then, there are feelings that are a deep current swaying my heart back and forth in painful, sweet, rich motion of memory.

And today, it's that. Within my chest, I feel emotions that span across thirteen years. They catapult me back to age 8, back into a wild child with her hair hanging wispily out of a messy pony-tail, thighs orange and dusty from shimmying up a "tiger tree", hands covered in clay and cuts and crudely made wire-and-bead "best friend" rings.

The Great Spin Cycle of Life has me caught in a current - all at once seeing my childhood in colorful, vibrant flashes behind me and simultaneously, a rich, busy future speeding towards me. I'm vacillating back and forth between the two, with one foot planted tentatively in each. While my life is moving more and more into grown-up-land, there are times when I am transported back, and Kara, as my soul-sister, baby-best-friend, and long-past playmate will ALWAYS remind me of the early days that we shared.

As Kara gets engaged and prepares for this future, with her mind and heart set on a NEW life, I'm rushed in a wave of emotion back to an old life. I can't help but watch my best friend get engaged not through the eyes of the woman I am today (who is, I'll admit, slightly jaded and stubborn and NOT taken aback by things) but through the eyes of that child, who watches with disbelief, joy, amazement, pride, and a little bit of sadness.

Every day that we played together as children, I watched her skip joyfully back through the woods to her house, waving emphatically, whistling, yelling, "SEE YOU LATER!"

And today, I watch her walking into marriage, hand-in-hand with a great man, and it's a similar feeling. I feel love. I feel sadness. I feel care and concern. I feel admiration. I feel pride. And most of all, I feel so incredibly lucky to know her.

I love you forever, Kar! Backwards forever and forwards forever. And as we continue our lives, feeling constantly propelled closer to eternity, I will ALWAYS think of you as a best friend - a faithful, beautiful glimpse to me of the God who made us both. Friend, you are beautiful, lovely, and true. Miguel is lucky to have you for a best friend, THIS I know.