Okay, I can exhale now.
Last night, Will and I celebrated our eleven year anniversary of best-friendshipness. Eleven years. There are marriages that don’t last that long. If you wanna know about it, you can read about it here
We laughed, we bleaked out about our clear aging processes. Swapped eye cream tips, laughed about our horrible choices in music in a past life. We reminisced about our mutual stories of our frondship (this is codespeak).
Something about Will and Grace. You know, it is possible that over the last year, we’ve disagreed. That sounds weird to say, especially considering that we never had any real disagreements until this, our eleventh year. Sure, Will has vehemently held back on commentary on certain choices I have made about where I place my heart in my life. But, this year we truly disagreed for the first time ever, to an almost awkward point.
But, we got over it, we got by, and I think we both realised it was actually a sign of our strength that it happened.
How did it happen? Will was worried about me. We ended up talking about how maybe we care too much. Turns out though, it’s not that at all. It’s when other people get involved and mixed up in the middle of what makes us a terminal team of madness and sanity, that something happens. We worry about each other. It’s what we do.
/One of the eight million and six reasons why I respect you so much, is that you’ve always been so careful not to intrude on it. Even to the point of us calling you ridiculous. The truth is, you fit with it. You’re okay to go with it. It means the world to me that you’ve never told me to choose./
And at 2am today, whilst we were laughing under the stars, having avoided crowds, ugly ex-boyfriends and irritating much-younger people who prompted me to ask the usual “Er, Will, do their mothers know they’re out? And no, I’m not paraphrasing ABBA”…I remembered how it is that my best friend and I met.
On a sunny Sunday. In a driveway. Neither of us feeling particularly social. And ultimately shy. I believe I was wearing some atrocious misconception of an outfit. It was not a red, tiered skirt, though. And I can confirm he was not wearing a polka dot shirt.
I keep in a file in my house. In it, the emails we used to write to each other. Termed the “spleenvent mails”, they got us through the years where Will lived in a different country, and I lived in another mental space. Those long-winded epistles made me laugh and cry every time. Were it not for those, I doubt I’d be the person I am today. By the time he returned on holiday, we were closer than anyone really knew. I think it was a bit of a shock for some people – we were okay with that.
And when, over a box of life-defining cigarettes, Will decided to return home, it was with my greatest heart that I felt okay with the world again. Will fast became the person I would run to, in real life, for everything. Will stood by me in everything. When I would cry about pain, he would put his hand on my shoulder and say “you know, these things will pass”. He would let me cry, never berate me for it. He would make me laugh. He would fish me out of life’s swimming pools, literally and figuratively. When the bottom fell out of my mind, shortly after Cam was born and my Dad died, it was Will who shuffled me into his house and said “here is a plate of food. eat it. this is a hot bath. wash in it. this is a pillow. sleep on it”. It was Will who got me through that time. When something in my house breaks, he brings his Big Jim toolbox and I laugh at his clearly butch nature. He has a tool cupboard in his kitchen. He’s like Bob the Builder, but Bob sings along to ABBA whilst he re-tiles people’s roofs or something. When my kidney broke, he rushed to hospital. Heh. Bjork, be damned :P.
The truth is, nothing ever changes between us. No matter how much life throws at us, candle holders inclusive, the texture and easy laughter flows without obstruction. I am blessed to have Will.
He is Cam’s godfather. That means more to me than you could know. To me, godparents aren’t there to ensure a child sticks to a religious principle. They exist to be another support to a child as they journey through the world.
I’ve had Will in my life for every critical turn in the journey, and every straight and easy road. I couldn’t have chosen better. I couldn’t ever have asked for a better partner in un-crime and oprah glasses. Knowing that Cam has that for her too, means the world to this mama.
Happy Anniversary, Will. Thank you for eleven years of everything we are.
Let’s go do the big block and the helicopter on the dancefloor like the crazy kids we still are. Just as soon as I finish my crossword 😛