California Bloggin' v5.0 :: Desiderium

From Spark:

Who is your best friend? Your most trusted confidant, your most reliable advisor, your most honest critic and most enthusiastic fan? Who is this person? When and how did you meet? Do you remember the moment you first realized he or she had become someone you could most intimately trust?

Good topic! I don't know if he even knows he's my best friend but he is. We've known each other for 30 years; since high school. I've always considered us friends but we've gotten much closer in the past year or so. Actually, we started getting closer a few years ago, but I got scared and ran away. I wasn't sure if I could seperate the "high school crush" feelings from the adult feelings of a strong friendship. Anyway, when we were in high school he always pushed me to do/be better than I thought I could. He's still brutally honest with me, and still pushes me to do my best. He edited my second book for me & had no problem telling me if something didn't make sense, or just downright sucked. But he always told me when I wrote something good. At one point when he told me the chapters he just read were the best I'd ever written I was beside myself with joy because I knew he wouldn't just say that to make me feel good. When my first book came out I was really nervous about him reading it because I knew he'd give me an honest appraisal. In fact, I didn't even believe it was good until he told me he liked it. ... OK. Onto when did I realize ...? A few years ago during my midlife crisis/nervous breakdown he was one of the reasons I was a mess. As I said, I wasn't sure I could seperate the feelings, and I had too many other things going on that were confusing me. I was afraid of doing/saying something that would irreparably damage our friendship, so I didn't e-mail him for a long time; almost a year. (Makes sense, doesn't it? Told ya, nervous breakdown.) We had been e-mailing several times a week. But in January 2003 I needed to tell him my book was being published. The experience wouldn't have been complete without him. Slowly, we got back to e-mailing regularly. Now, barring unusual circumstances, we e-mail each other daily. I really look forward to that. He says he does, too. We talk about everything almost everything. And it's wonderful. We haven't seen each other in six years but he'll be here soon and we're going out to dinner in 11 days. (11 days! Holy shit! OMG!!) So, what did I mean by the aforementioned "almost everything?" Well, there's one thing I want to say but can't because I'm afraid it would be taken the wrong way. But, seeing as how he knows me so well (or at least he thinks he does; I'm always surprising him with things from my lurid past), I would guess he knows without me actually having to say it. I hope he does anyway.

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