Meggy - When it comes to Best Friends, she takes the cupcake!

Megan and I were destined to be BFFs.  She went to college with my cousin, Jess (about whom I will most certainly write one of these entries), and in their senior year, my friend Rachel and I hung out with the two of them A LOT.  I can't exactly pinpoint a moment or a night when we just clicked (though I think there may have been some yarnwork involved) but the fact of the matter is, we did.  When it came time for Jess to move back home after she graduated, Meggy and I were already rockin' the beginning of a solid kindred friendship.

We were perfect together.  That first bit of time we spent together was like an extended BFF honeymoon.  We ate sushi two, three, four times a week.  We sat on her couch and watched hours of tv while making old lady crafts.  We indulged in Blue Cupcakes at least once a week.  We shared clothes, perfected the art of the high five, and cooked endless meals together.  Our love for each other was so cute it was sickening.

Meggy and I have been BFFs for nearly a year and half now.  Lots of things have changed in our lives over that time.  My crazy guard and teaching schedule combined with her Kickass-Head-Grad-Assistant (that's her official title, in my mind) schedule have not done us any favors this academic year.  At times, I believe, we have both had our moments where we've felt distance and strain in our relationship due to life's happenings.  I hate when life does that, but the nice thing is it makes the reunion outings even that much more fun.

I have three stories I want to share which illustrate why I love Meggy so very much.  These are not arranged chronologically, but instead they've been ordered for greatest written effect.  (You should be feeling intrigue and excitement right now.)

Blue Cupcake
In the spring of 2010, there was a two or three day span when I was just having a rough time.  The kids at work had gone nuts, I was way behind in grading, and I was stressed over multiple life situations.  Meggy knew I was having a time of it,  and we had plans to meet for dinner.  When I sat down in the booth at the restaurant, she produced a plastic container with a Blue Cupcake.  This Blue Cupcake gets initial capitalization because it was one of the most delicious desserts on the face of the planet.  It was delicious because it came from Carolina Cafe at Friendly Center, and it was comprised of amazing vanilla cakey goodness topped with luscious blue icing.  It's heaven in cupcake form.  Meggy knows this.  She knew I was having a bad day.  So she brought me a Blue Cupcake.  Do you see the amazing BFF love in this situation?

Hobby Lobby Reunion
Last summer, Meggy and I went for nearly two months without seeing one another.  In the interim between undergrad and Graduate school, she spent most of her time with her parents in her hometown in western NC, and I spent a lot of time traveling to see friends and family in eastern North Carolina.  In August, on the first night that both of us were back in Greensboro, we planned to meet at our then-favorite sushi restaurant and catch up on some much needed quality time with her couch & tv.  I got there a little early, so I went into Hobby Lobby to look around and wait.  She called me to check my arrival status, and we realized that she was near and that she TOO needed to go to Hobby Lobby.  So it was set.  We would reunite there.  And friends, how we reunited.  We weaved through the aisles and ended up in the middle of the store in a giant, loud, girl-squealing, dropping-purses-on-the-floor, lasting-nearly-two-minutes hug.  There were stares from customers and employees alike, and I'm sure we were a public nuisance.  But I think they could see that this was an important hug.  It was a hug for the books.

The Night She Kept Me From Crumbling Into a Million Pieces
So we all saw it.  I had been hanging on entirely too long to a guy and a relationship that were slowly but ever so surely draining the hope and joy out of my life. The relationship had been precarious at best for about two and a half years, and the demise of it was inevitable.  It REALLY started to groan with the threat of collapse in those last six months.  When I finally made the decision that I wasn't going to do it anymore, Megan was the one I called.  I told her that morning that I was going to call him after work and that I needed her.  We met at her house and I left him a voice message to call me back.  I knew he wouldn't be able to call until he got off work, so to keep me occupied, she took me out for sushi (we like it a lot, if you can't tell).  We talked a little about the situation, but I think she mostly steered me toward other topics.  By the time we got back to her place, I felt a thousand percent sure that I was doing the right thing and I was in capable hands.

He called right as we parked at her complex.  In a calm, only slightly shaky voice, I ended a six-year relationship with a two-minute phone call.  As soon as I hung up, I felt myself fall onto Meggy's lap and just dissolve into sobs.  They were good, solid, healthy sobs and my tears formed a huge wet spot on her jeans.  Megan, a woman who is not a fan of other people's bodily fluids OR of distressing emotional situations, lovingly stroked my hair and allowed me to take my natural course.  When I was done, I sat up, wiped my face quickly and said, "Lets go watch Glee."  At which point she promptly provided me with yarn, Matthew Morrison, her couch, and a Blue Cupcake she had picked up in preparation for the evening.

I wouldn't have survived very well without her that night.  I didn't just end a really long relationship.  That night, I took a big, scary step out of the boat and dared to truly believe that God was going to keep me above the water.  Not just above the water, but walking with Him on top of that tumultuous water that I had feared so long because I knew it would swallow me without Him.  When you make the decision to take a step like that, and you choose to allow yourself the possibility of a better life than you ever thought you deserved, it's a scary frickin' moment.  It's a moment when you need a kindred friend.

So that's why she's my BFF.  I laid alone in a field in Tennessee when I accepted Christ when I was twelve, but Meggy held my hand on the day that God truly saved my life.

KMc 5/15/11