Brittney and I go way back.
Check out those cool haircuts that me and Mallory had.
Mal and my Pocahontas birthday party at the skating rink. Mal and I are obviously the two that are dressed alike and Brit is on the front in the purple. :)
Somehow we missed each other in the kindergarten hall of Shannon Elementary, maybe because I was confined to Mrs. Shumpert’s room and Brittney to Mrs. Porter’s. When it came time for 1st grade, though, we were both lucky enough to be in Mrs. Christian’s class. We (we being myself, Mallory, and Brittney because Mallory and I were kind of a package deal back then) really bonded when it came time for the 1st grade Peter Rabbit play and we escaped being vegetables and were cast into the roles of Peter’s twin sister rabbits, Floppsy and Mopsy, and Brittney was our rabbit mom, Mother Rabbit . We were rabbit kin. Brit even remained my friend after I gave myself a terrible haircut and Mama made Mallory get one that matched. That was very nice of Brit, because we looked like special kids. By the end of our 1st grade year, Brit, Mal and I were coping without a nap time, reading about a kid named Nan, and were big buddies.
We were put in the same class in 2nd grade too and got to watch Mrs. Collins drag Corey Winfrey all of the way from Monday row into her storage closet of doom. Elementary school rolled on by and we moved into the awkward junior high years. And liking boys. I think that we must have been the most boy-crazy girls ever. It’s hilarious how we were convinced that we were both in love with Cody Scott, and at the same time, mind you. I will cherish all of those nights of sitting in the McPherson house and calling into the All Dedication Hour on KZ105 and dedicating Alicia Keys’ “Fallin” to Jim and Braxton from Nicole and Leeanna to conceal our identity. We were oh so dumb, but it was fun.
Brittney’s birthday is in October, so she was the first one of our friends to get our license in high school. That was when I stopped hanging out at home so much and starting spending most of my Saturday nights at Skate Zone chasing boys on Christian Skate Night. I’m glad that the red Cavalier wasn’t exactly a hottie-getting magnet, because I could have been stuck with a not-so-classy skating rink boy instead of Ben Bunch.
After graduation, I went to ICC and Brit ventured north to NECC, but we got to room together when we both ended up at State for the last few years of school. My Mama always says that you don’t know anyone until you live with them, and I suppose that’s true because I there’s a lot that we didn’t know about each other. For example, I didn't know that anyone could kill plants like Brit can. It's pretty amazing. Neither one of us are great cooks, but we've learned the hard way that a clove of garlic IS NOT the entire bulb of garlic. When Mallory moved back home to do her student teaching and I had some sort of twin separation anxiety, Brit became my fill-in sister. I’ll always be thankful for her letting me sleep in her room those first few nights.
I think that your best friends are your best friends not because they have some kind of super powers, but because you experience life at the same time. There are very few times in my life when I can say that Brittney hasn’t been there. She has been my running buddy since first grade and I couldn’t imagine getting married without her on the stage with me.
