My BFF

I met my best friend in seventh or eighth grade. It's actually kind of a funny story. We both have brothers named Spencer who are the same age. I think they were friends. So that meant that automatically we would be friends. Especially since they discovered that we were related. Actually, maybe that is why they were friends. Maybe this is how it went:
"Hey, my mom is a Stout" (Spencer M., NOT my brother).
"Hey that's cool. We should be friends" (Spencer S. my brother).
"Yeah, anyone descended from Allen Joseph S. is a rock star and is therefore my friend" (Spencer M.).
"And I AM a rock star" (Spencer S.)
Well, maybe that's not how it happened with them, I don't know how many rock stars Spencer M. befriended, but I can tell you how his little sister and I became friends, and we are definitely rock stars. We were in Mrs. Koritz's social studies class in seventh or eighth grade. We knew our brothers were friends so there was the obligatory exchanges, I was a shy little seventh or eighth grader. I ended up sitting behind her kind of a lot. In addition to being shy, I had some nervous habits. Annoying nervous habits. One of which was tapping my foot on either the floor or the leg of the chair in front of me. Poor girl. I don't know how I always ended up behind her to kick her chair incessantly, maybe we had assigned seats, but she would turn around and very nicely ask me to stop. Well, I was not only shy and had annoying habits, I also had a short memory when I was concentrating. One fateful day I was concentrating very hard on a particularly effort draining social studies question when I started tapping away. She kindly turned around and asked me to stop. "Oh, sorry." Eight, maybe ten seconds went by before my focus took me away to tapping out another tarantella on her chair leg. She flipped around. "STOP KICKING MY CHAIR!" I was startled enough NOT to tap her chair leg anymore. I would like to think that I stopped being annoying right then. But alas, seventh or eighth graders can't help but be annoying. Needless to say, we didn''t become BFF's at that time.
Fast forward a few years to sophomore volleyball tryouts. I think that's where we need to fast forward to, I have never been very good at time travel. Unfortunately, Annalisa jacked up her knee, which gives her plenty of grief to this day. I think we warmed up together on the court. We had more contact after that being big bad high schoolers and all. Fast forward to eleventh grade ladies chorus with Mr. Smith. That is where we really became good friends. She was sassy and fun and actually would come over and talk to me. Now, I think by the time I hit 11th grade I was over my annoying middle school stage, but I was still very shy (and still had a short term memory). She had to work on me a little bit, but once she got me talking, I haven't shut up since. Senior year we were inseparable, with ABish as well. We were Triple A. A is for awesome. She has been my BFF ever since.
Annalisa has been the best friend a girl could ever ask for. I got through high school because of her. I actually had friends. She helped me get through some life changing events and never judged me. She was the first person I told when I got my first kiss. Of course it was on tape and she didn't hear it for several weeks because she lived on the other side of the planet, but I wanted her to know. She is the one who got me thinking about serving a mission, something I never thought I would actually do. It rocked my world. She wrote me every week of her mission. She called me from the airport when she was shipping out to Australia. Made my day. I was the first person she told when she got engaged, of course it was on tape and I didn't hear about it for a few weeks after the incident because I lived across the world, but hey, she told me first. She gets my sense of humor and actually has a very similar one. Our parents never worried about what we were doing because we were good kids who hung out with other good kids. There are very few people who can make me laugh so hard I can't breathe. She is one of those people.
Annalisa is one of the best people I know. She wants to be her best self. She has a wonderful husband andthe most adorable daughter in the world. She is the best mom. Someday Iwant to be a mom like she is. Even though she lives across the country, Annalisa is still one of my closest friends. It's nice to have people in your life that even if you go for a while without talking to them, you can pick right up where you left off and things are still the same between you. Thanks for being my BFF!