Friday, August 15, 2008

So..well...yeah.

So I've been avoiding writing about this topic because well, I don't know why. But what the hell.

This weekend I am going to Chicago. To run a race. To help in a race for a friend's foundation for brain cancer research. She is an amazing person and I am thrilled to even be associated with her.

The little part you don't know: I am going with one of my oldest and best friends on the planet and that doesn't even do it justice. We are flying in at the same time tonight, leaving on the same time on Monday. We'll be sleeping on couches, floors and lord knows where else. But we haven't been away alone together since, well, Mardi Gras in 1997. We've been friends since I was 18 and have probably talked almost every day since then. No lie. But we have not lived in the same state past college.

Did I mention that HE and I dated for 7 years and almost got married? Did I say that yet? No, probably not.

At this point we have been friends for almost 20 years and for the past 13 have only been friends. He is married with 3 kids now (2 adopted, one step). He has been with his wife for 10 years. I was maid of honor in his wedding. I have gone on vacation with them. Me going with him this weekend (it is friend's wife who has the foundation) was his WIFE'S idea. To be honest, we both thought that was a little weird and funny - even after all this time. I am married with 2 kids and my husband is a total rockstar. He also has no problem with this. Which is amazing and weird and fabulous that he is so secure.

But there is a part of me that is nervous and excited. Because underneath all the friendship...well, is something more that will always exist for both of us. We joke that when we are 90 and our spouses have kicked the bucket, we'll end up getting married at a nursing home.

We both realized many years ago that as much as we love each other, we could never be together. We are two peas in a pod and anytime we tried getting too serious, it just didn't work. We work as friends. So I have this part of my life that has my husband and my kids and then I have him. And he has the same. Does anyone find that odd? The odd part for me is that I don't. It is like having a soulmate in a friend that just happens to be of the opposite sex and well, isn't your husband and never could be.

Well, until we're 90.

Rock on,
Paula