Looking Good in 1996!
Looking even better in 2008!
I'm Uhna Squesssss Ya!!
In honor of
Tanya's birthday, I'm resurrecting a post I dedicated to her in a previous blog life.
It's 1987. A room full of sweaty teenagers. Eighties "muzac" belting out from some worn out speaker system in a crowded high school gymnasium. Packed groups of minor niners dancing in wide circles scattered throughout the gym. Two young girls who had only heard whispers of one another before this night, come together, dance together, boogie down together in what some might call "when fate meets destiny".
K1 - dancing within her own circle of friends, too scared to make a move outside the circle, notices a new girl shaking her groove "thang" into the circle, dancing like some kind of Mexian Jumping Bean.
Tanya - giving up her dance moves like 80s "muzac" is going out of style, decidedly moving into unchartered territory, breaking into a circle of dancers already in motion notices a girl with HUGE eighties hair and BANGS that reach almost as high as the ceiling.
Little did they both know that this night would mark the beginning of a now twenty one year friendship that has witnessed both the joys of marriage, of the birth of a daughter and the grief of the loss of a father and of a friend gone too soon.
In the beginning, all I can recall is laughter - hours spent on the phone, in the mall, in the basement of a house, on the bus in pure and utter hilariousness. Stomach-cramping laughter. Milk shooting-out-nose kind of laughter. The kind of laughter unaltered by drugs or alcohol. Pure. Like our friendship.
Off to rival universities, our friendship lasted through fours years of separation by hundreds of miles and through the ups and downs of Canada Post. Not until the advent of the internet in 1993 or so, were we able to communicate via email. Nowadays, it seems as though email is the third party in this relationship - whatever would we do without it, Tan?
Boys. Oh there were many boys. But none came between us, as we were too smart for that. However, Tanya did date my hubby before I did. Alas, his beauty was trumped by his lack of skills in the kissing department, or so she claims. I, for one, think he does just fine in that area.
When we finally did make decisions about the important boys, we chose well. Tanya and I, perhaps naively, believe that we snagged the last two most amazing men in the world. Craig, Tanya's boy, is as sweet as they come and loves Tanya more than anything in the world.
In May of 2001, and after many years of infertility, Tanya and Craig finally became parents to a beautiful daughter named, Grace. I had the honor of helping Tanya bring this little life into the world and it is a day that I will never forget. Her absolute courage and her love for this beautiful baby, is etched in my mind forever.
Things have not always been rosy in our friendship and there have been a few very anxious moments throughout. For instance, the day I found out that Tanya was a closet Backstreet Boys fan, made me question the very ground on which our friendship was built. When I learned that her fascination with the Backstreet Boys extended to a ticket to see them in concert, the foundation cracked a little further. Liking ABBA was one thing, but the Backstreet Boys? C'mon!
Nonetheless, the core values we share will be those that keep us together until the end. Our love of coffee, of Dane Cook, of television, and of sushi keeps it real, man. These are core values.
Every girl must have a best friend. Beyond that, every girl must have a best friend who will always tell her the truth no matter how difficult that truth is to hear. In my lifetime, I am proud to say, that I am fortunate enough and must have done something fabulous enough in a former life to have the honor of knowing such a friend. Tanya is to me the voice of reason, of sanity, of strength and of love - a deep and loyal love. There is no one that will ever come close to what she means to me and I trust that there is no one in her life that comes close to what I mean to her. Of this, I am more than sure.
