How My Best Friend Saved My Life
By Ari Eastman
“I just want to have sex and be in love with someone!!!” I melodramatically sighed, plopping down on my couch, my best friend sitting opposite of me. She shot me back a look that both said, “Shut up” and “I love you.” This magical combination of Grumpy Cat, Nick Miller, and something special that’s all her own. The Jojo effect, I call it. She’s got a frown that somehow still lets me know she cares. *Sparkling lights* THE JOJO EFFECT!
“I give up! Just buy me all the cats and let’s call it a fucking day already.” My voice dripping with DRAMA (partially for comedic effect, but also, sometimes I’m just too dramatic).
“No, because I’m allergic to cats.”
“I will never know the feel of human touch again! I will never love! I WILL DIE ALONE!!!” I continued, fanning myself with a scrunched up magazine.
“You won’t. You’ll be married and all I ask is that you let me live in your garage like Chandler promises Joey.”
“We will buy houses next to each other and build a secret underground tunnel so we can meet up and hang out when our husbands are bothering us.”
“I support this plan.”
“Bert and Ernie forever.”
“I wouldn’t want anything else.”
I’ve never been sure if things happen for a reason. It’s a romantic concept. It gives us a sense of comfort and security, something so many of us lack. Everything is unpredictable. You can plan out your entire life, create the perfect blueprint for how you want things to go, and guess what? Something changes. Something happens and you are like, “What? But this wasn’t THE PLAN?”
Sometimes, I think shit happens. When you lose someone important, face tragedy, experience injustice or unbelievable heartache, it’s a little difficult to believe there was a reason. And maybe there isn’t.
But I believe there’s a reason I met her. I believe there’s a reason my living situation fell through and I moved into an apartment I wasn’t too keen to live in at first. The plan was to just live with one person. The idea of living with three girls? It was kind of a nightmare, I’ll be honest. Even if I loved those girls. I crave solitude and time to reenergize. I didn’t know how I could do that living in a tiny, cramped space with three other girls.
But if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have met my soulmate. Or at least, I wouldn’t have realized she was. She was the quiet girl in my class, someone I had just a few conversations with. Little did I know she’d become one of the most important people in my life, and someone, who at times, seems to know me better than I know myself.
The times I sat in class trying to peel my banana and COULDN’T FUCKING GET IT TO PEEL, so she said, “God, let me do it!”
The times we had massive social anxiety at parties, so we ignored everyone else and just talked to each other.
The spontaneous adventures to record stores, blending in with every other LA resident and writing our screenplays at coffee shops, and endless frozen yogurt. So much frozen yogurt.
The road trips with the most eclectic CD mixes you’ve ever heard.
The time we drove an hour and she accompanied me to audition for The Bachelor. (I’m not kidding)
The times she didn’t agree with my behavior, but never made me feel like shit for going against everyone’s advice.
The times she listened to my poetry again (and again and again and again). Girl can practically recite half my work.
The times she knew I needed to be alone, and respected it.
The times I knew she needed to be alone, and I respected it.
The times we just needed to be alone together.
I’ve written before about how I’m unsure if soulmates exist. I think everyone has some sort of potential in your life. And in the romantic case, it’s true, I don’t think there is one perfect person out there. We have the capability to fall in love so many times, with so many people. Our hearts have unlimited space.
But the thing is, I did meet my soulmate. And she saved my life in ways she knows, and others she can’t begin to comprehend.
To the girl who has seen me through Hell and back, and made fucked up jokes along the way, I love you more than you’ll ever know. Thank you.
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