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Meet Kristen. "Blog, Kristen." "Kristen, Blog."

Kristen and I have been friends for a long time. We met when we were "young and stupid." To be exact, she was just out of college, and I was halfway through.

We have a lot in common and a lot not in common. Luckily they line up in the right ways so we compliment each other very well.

In case you're having trouble telling us apart; she's tall and straight and blond, and I'm short and curvy and brunette. She can run much much faster than I can, but I can duck under things, so both of us have valid escape options from creepy guys.

The picture above was taken this past weekend, when I was back in Chicago. The purpose for my trip was to shop with my mom for her wedding dress/shoes/accessories/etc. We found them all, she's going to look amazing, but I can't leak the details to ensure Homer stays in the dark about it all until that day. I did a have a wonderful time with my mom, as we always do, but this story is about my time with Kristen.

We went out on Saturday night to one of my favorite restaurants that she was dying to try, Coast Sushi. It was awesome, as always. A bottle of wine and three maki rolls later we blew that joint and headed to another of my favorites, and one of hers too, Hot Chocolate. The desserts there are amazing, even more so are the chocolate martinis. So amazing we each had two. Are you keeping track? That's a half bottle of wine and two martinis each.

Yeah, we had fun. We made up t-shirt ideas. You know you are wasted when you're making up t-shirt slogans.

Now Kristen and I always have fun when we get together, we've just usually only had the time to see each other over iced tea at lunch. Over the years she's done her thing and I've done mine as we tried to figure out who we are and where we're going in life. There have been times when we haven't seen each other for a year, but we made sure to check in occasionally. Whenever we did get together we always started off right where we ended the last time. No weirdness, no hurt feelings, no "where the hell have you been you big jerk?"

Lately our friendship has been experiencing a bit of a renaissance, despite my move to New York. We've both been going through some pretty big life changes recently, and though no two situations are the same, the way we are feeling and the things we are learning about ourselves have been. Even though we still don't talk all the time, we've been able to support each other by feeling safe enough to say the things that may be hard to tell everyone else. It's actually quite a profound thing happening in a very quiet way between the two of us. (I just said that to use 'quite' and 'quiet' in the same sentence to see if I could confuse anyone. Not really. Well, a little bit.)

Sometimes I wish we had been having this kind of friendship consistently for the past 10 years, I'm sure she feels that way too. But then I remember that just because our relationship is different now doesn't mean it was bad before. It was just, different. It was who we were and what was important to us then. We weren't selfish, or too busy, or anything like that. There was never a day when I doubted that she was a great friend and would be there if I needed her. I hope she felt the same way. And I really don't feel like we wasted any valuable friendship time. Ten years is a long time, but its nothing compared to the time we have going forward.

One day Kristen and I will both be "older and wiser." Until then we're going to have a great time getting there... drinking chocolate martinis and ice tea all the way. A little heavier on the chocolate martinis. The world needs more inspired t-shirt slogans.