My Very First Boy BFF

When I was in kindergarten, I had two BFFs. Stacy and JD. Stacy lived... next door? A few doors down? We played all the time and I particularly remember being at a sleepover at her house and jumping on the bed late at night until her mom came in to quiet us down. JD lived down the hill and I have memories of jumping on the brown leather couch in his basement. Lots of jumping on furniture in my early years, it seems.

We all lived at West Point, where most military families stay for 2-3 years and then move on. After kindergarten, we moved away, but came back for another few years when I was in 4th grade. Stacy and her family were gone (don't worry, we've since found each other on Facebook and her mom is now a wonderfully supportive reader of this blog!) But JD's family was still there and he was in my 4th grade class. We were back to being BFF again. Now, he was clearly my boy BFF, because at this point I was probably struggling mightily to have as many girl BFFs as possible. In fact, we were such good friends that all our other friends were pressuring us to "go out". It all came to a head one summer afternoon between 4th and 5th grade at Delafield Pond when JD and I finally discussed "dating". We decided (at age 10) that we really valued our friendship and didn't want to do anything that would ruin that. So we decided not to "go out". Incredibly mature of us. Or maybe just an easy way out of not hurting each other's feelings since we liked each other, but didn't like-like each other.

So we continued to be friends. We were in chorus together. And hand bell choir (yes, hand bell choir. We even went to some regional competitions, thank you very much). And we were in all the "advanced" classes. I have such memories of him getting a case of the giggles during our "Sustained Silent Reading" period and almost getting in BIG trouble with Mrs Pauley, our 8th grade homeroom teacher. And we sat across from each other in Earth Science (? - or some such science class), at a lab table RIGHT under our teacher's nose and still managed to pass notes to each other. And sometimes we got away with it. I remember we found it so funny that Mr Boucher pronounced "washer" with an "R" in it - "waRsher". And laughing hysterically about a local radio station called WSUD - "Music from the Terrace" and we kept saying, "What the heck are they talking about? What TERRACE?!" Oh, we thought we were sooooo smart. And soooooo funny. And retrospectively, I know that he was a really good friend because in 9th grade, when we hit high school, he told me I was changing. Which was true. As most girls do when they enter high school and start getting attention from senior guys, I became a bit of an idiot. And he called me on it. See? Good friend.

We moved to Virginia after 9th grade, but JD and I kept in touch sporadically. We tracked each other down shortly after I moved to NYC and had lunch one day when he was in town. He's continued to pursue music, has his masters in conducting and has been working in the city for the past...almost a year now as a choral music editor. Which I just know takes a ton of crazy music smarts. It sounds intimidating, and I was a music major myself. He owns a house in New Jersey, like a grown-up. He has a ginormous Wiemaraner named Cooper. He is taking his youth choir on a 10 day tour of Europe next week. And yesterday, we met for a super quick lunch at Chipotle, since we've discovered our offices are only 4 blocks away. My office was madness as usual, but I snuck away anyway. And I'm so glad I did. We caught up on the last 6-7 years and marvelled at how we could possibly be 15 years out of highschool. WHAT?!

Ma - here's a picture as promised. And yes, that is a copier behind us as this was a iPhone self-portrait on the corner of 37th Street right in front of a Kinkos.

Here's to friends who have known you since you were 5.