Bottle it up

We met when I was 10 or 11. I don't really remember how. Our families had moved from opposite sides of the country to Texas around the same time and lived on the same street in a subdivision where, with the exception of exterior cosmetic changes, all of the houses looked the same.

My mom didn't have her license and I needed a way to get back and forth to school. Her mom drove a Chevy Caprice station wagon and took what seemed like every kid in the neighborhood to their respective schools. I'm positive there were no less than twelve pre-teens and teens in that car at any given time.*

We developed a friendship that holds nothing but good memories for me . . . 

:: The summers spent watching whatever movie happened to be our favorite over and over again and reciting all of the lines when we weren't. 

:: Warm Texas nights catching fireflies and dodging june bugs. 

:: Playing kick the can with the kids we kept such close company with in that station wagon.

:: Pestering her younger sister.** 

:: Driving the Pontiac Sunbird with her mother's permission when neither of us had a license.***

:: Being grounded, with strict instructions that I couldn't have anyone over, and she would come sit in the neighbor's yard just so that we could visit. 

:: Taking the bus to the public library to work on the neighborhood newspaper that we created.****

:: Watching the massive curtains of rain during thunderstorms from the windows of my mom's studio.

:: Dancing in the puddles afterwards.

:: Looking through the pages of Seventeen magazine and wishing we were models. 

:: Dressing up in my sister's high school formals and pretending we were models. 

:: Doing leg lifts so that our thighs were the size of model thighs. (I'm sensing a theme here.)

 . . . and so much more.

We kept in touch after I moved to Wisconsin in high school but somewhere after that life happened; college came and went, we each moved, and addresses got lost; it has only been in the last few years that we've reconnected. 

We've come full circle in a sense, each moving back to the place where we lived before our families journeyed south and tomorrow, after 19 years of not seeing each other, I'll be picking Kathleen up at the airport for a 5-day visit.

There is not a big enough bottle in the world to contain my excitement.

*When I actually stop and count I guess there were only 9 or so. 

**Sorry, Bernadette.

***If I remember correctly we were given permission to drive it around the block a few times to make sure that it was still running. We took the long way home.

****It was a short-lived career with only one issue in existence.