I have it on very good authority that Melanie‘s birthday is tomorrow.
The source of that good authority? MY CALENDAR.
(FANCY!)
And here’s a little secret (well, it’s not really a secret, but we can certainly pretend that it is for the sake of narrative) that you may not know: Melanie and I actually became friends way back in the bloggy day when she left a comment that referenced two of my favorite topics, football and worship music.
Seriously.
I’m not kidding.
Here it is.
You should know that I love her comment for many reasons, but the fact that it’s from “Melaie” is the icing on the comment cake. We have since developed a wide-ranging repertoire of words we frequently mistype, and “Melaie” was just a small taste of many typing-related hilarities to come. Warms my heart, it does.
Anyway, it took me all of five seconds to fire off of quick reply after I read that comment. If I’m not mistaken, I wrote something incredibly profound, something along the lines of “JACKIE SHERRILL? I LOVE JACKIE SHERRILL.”
And thus a friendship was born.
Also, I just noticed that Mel actually left that comment in August of 2006. Which means that in addition to tomorrow being her birthday, it’s also a pretty good time to celebrate our friendiversary. Maybe P and D can throw us a party. We can meet halfway between Birmingham and San Antonio and share a box of Cheez-Its and a couple of Route 44 Diet Cokes from Sonic. P can shoot some wild game for us, and then D can analyze the overall strategy, execution and success of P’s shooting and put all the data in a spreadsheet that we’ll have lacquered onto a commemorative plaque. It’ll be a precious time.
For the last four years Mel and I have emailed and talked and cried and laughed like nobody’s business. We’ve covered a mind-boggling amount of conversational ground (however, I can’t recall that we’ve ever talked about the proliferation of nuclear arms, but then again we’re not really what you would call well-versed in foreign affairs). And even though it’s a little bit of a cliche’ to say that you don’t think you would have made it without [fill in the blank], I cannot imagine what I would have done without her. We could have never known it back in August 2006, but God had some crazy adventures waiting for us. And the fact that a couple of borderline introverts with a host of confidence issues and a deep love for reality television managed to set aside our fears and our remotes long enough to forge a lifelong friendship will forever be a wonder to me.
I think that God knew we would need each other. I’m so grateful that He did.
So all that to say: Happy 39th, Big Mama. You are an incredible wife and mother. You are a loyal and steady and trustworthy friend. You are more talented than you know. You are, in the words of our pretend friend Rachel Zoe, BANANAS.
And your friendship is the best gift the internet ever gave me.
Here’s to many more memories, sweet friend.