On the occasion of her 30th birthday

Kathryn, Kathryn, Kathryn.

It’s the very last minute, the 12th hour (literally, actually). I’ve been stalling: I’ve brainstormed and started and stopped and played around online and started over and moved from the computer to a notebook and changed pens and browsed through my CD collection for the perfect nostalgic music and written one line and crossed it out and—

How does anyone expect me to do this? How could I possibly distill 18 years of best friendship down to mere words? We met in junior high; we must have been about 12. I’ve known and loved Kathryn now for longer than I ever lived without her. So how can I squeeze more than half our lives — all that laughter, all those confidences, all the adventures and all the turmoil of growing up — into a few paragraphs that come close to saying what I mean?

What tone should I strike? I could certainly go the sentimental route; I love her madly and miss her terribly now that we don’t live near each other anymore. I’d love to be witty, to make her laugh the way we used to do until all hours of the morning. I could give a simple run-down of our association over the years, an inventory of experiences with their corresponding dates and historical context. I could do a roast; she’s always been far too easy to tease.

A sample of contemplated first lines:

Kathryn has trouble distinguishing onions from garlic but — lucky for us — that foible hasn’t hampered her ability to make pork chops any.

If there’s one thing Kathryn has taught me, it’s that rear-wheel drive isn’t terribly effective in the snow.

I felt like I held my breath for three solid months that summer Miriam was born and Kathryn had her kidney transplant.

There’s no one you can be stupid with like an old friend, I discovered one afternoon while trying to find the Great Salt Lake....

We struck out on our own in the summer of 2000, moved into a great little basement apartment, and quibbled over who got to be Laverne and who got to be Shirley.

But what to say, really? “You know you don’t have to make it perfect for me,” she’s always told me, knowing how I agonize over every little word I write. But I do have to make it perfect. For someone who’s influenced my life so profoundly by her friendship and example, it ought to be perfect. For someone who’s loved me unconditionally, whether I deserved it or not, it ought to be perfect. For someone so unfailingly generous to me and to everyone she meets, it ought to be perfect.

Is it enough just to say I love you? Because when you mix it all in, boil it all down, that's what it comes to: I love you, Kathryn. I couldn't ask for a better friend and can't imagine my life without you in it.

Here's to a happy milestone birthday, and many more returns of the day.


~RCH~