Mandy

Tomorrow, I’m driving to Champaign to see Mandy.  I haven’t seen her since August when we went to St. Pete Beach together – I still need to write about that trip!  We have nothing exciting planned, but I am grateful for the opportunity to spend the day with her!

Mandy and I have been best friends since high school – through working together at Spieth Photography, going to EIU at the same time, and then teaching and advising the yearbook together.  She’s dealt with me at my worst and been there anyway… through my “queen” years, infertility, and even when it was time for me to move away.  Leaving her was the hardest part of leaving Olney and there are still nights that I’ll dream that we are working together at the high school.  My years at the high school, working with Mandy, were some of my happiest.  Even though we are polar opposites (I’ll save the story of the costumes in the yearbook room for another day…) there is no one else who consistently has my back and lets me say my truth, quite like Mandy.

Friendship is one of those crazy things, and I’m grateful that Mandy and I have been able to endure through the years — and the distance.  I know she doesn’t always like what I have to say (I’m a bit opinionated at times…), but she never makes me feel like I’m too much.  She listens and gives feedback to my crazy ideas, never questions that at my core I care about her and love her, and has let me find my way — even if part of that way was away from her. ?