BFL

When I was in 6th grade, I was brand new in this town called Kirkwood, Missouri. I called it misery because I hated living in Missouri after leaving my childhood home of Ripon, California. It was all I could do to not be awkward and miserable in this new town of Kirkwood. My parents had me join the swim team, and I did. I sort of liked it because I was sort of good considering that I had been swimming USS for a year or two.

It was on the Kirkwood Swim and Dive team that I was assigned to a relay. It was our medley relay for 11-12 girls. Our relay was Lindsey, Lindsay, Lisa, and Lindsey. I swam fly and I loved that I was the one that swam fly in our relay. The anchor (unless they had her swim breaststroke for some reason) of our relay was Lindsey Chalfant. Little did I know that just a few months later she would become my best friend.

We were classic best friends in middle school. I had finally become cool enough to start talking on the phone, and boy, we talked on the phone...all the time. I even made up a song to sing her phone number. When we were a year older, I was still into some dude named Adam, or Mark, or "tutoring boy", or Ian, or Brett that I don't remember why I like him...or any of them. We also were into this awesome swimmer on the swim team named Penny Parham who was friends with my big brother Dave. I have never been obsessed with someone like I was with Penny. I honestly have a reason to apologize to her because I might have freaked her out in life. Lindsey and I wrote a song about Penny. I think the lines were "We love you Penny, Oh yes we do, when we're not with you, we get so blue, It's cuse your not a nickle or a half dollar, but cuse you're Penny we love you!" Wow, we were lame.

Later that summer we wrote a book together during one of our sleepovers. We titled it "101 ways to get out of swim practice". We were sure to get lots of royalties for it. One of the best excuses was to put your ear plugs up your nose so they got stuck up there. Yeah, we never got a book deal. BUT I did get the "biggest whiners" award that summer at the banquet.

Anyways, my dad lost his job when I was in 8th grade, and Lindsey's dad lost his job that same year too. My family realized we were going to move to Denver and Lindsey's family was going to move too...but they didn't know where yet. We sold our house fast, and infact, her family was gone for 2 months so my family moved into her house on Orrick Lane for those two months... with their cat Scardey and our dog Mocha. That's another story for another time.

We moved to Denver. They moved to Topeka, KS. I went to Seattle for college, Lindsey went to KU for school and fell in love with Jason. I moved to Chicago, and then to Santa Barbara. Jason and Lindsey got married and moved to Charlotte, NC. BUT, with all the moving and living in different places in life, she has still remained my Best Friend Lindsey. I never refer to her as Lindsey, always with the title Best Friend Lindsey (BFL). In return, I am Best Friend Lisa (BFL). It is to the point when people ask about her, they ask how "best friend Lindsey" is.

It is amazing to me that we only lived in the same city as best friends for two years, but have remained best friends across the states for 17 years!


BFL had a baby one month ago yesterday. Gabriel Jason entered our small world and is doing GREAT! I am SO lame for not posting about him sooner, but I am SO proud of the mom that BFL has become. If we were still in 7th grade, we would say that she was a "wicked awesome" mom. You are a wicked awesome mom, and I love you dearly. Congratulations, BFL! Oh, and Gabe, be careful of being a thumb sucker. I was and I got 3 years of braces out of the deal during middle school...