A Ride or Die Bitch

A decade ago, while most of us were still in the bra training game, The Spice Girls said it right.

"If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends"

I may have a secret talent for attracting the most unavailable of men into my life, but I seem to also have a knack for attracting some of the best humans to walk this planet when it comes to my friendships.

Unlike in the dating game, we don't always seek our friends out based on a certain look, or walk, or talk, or our body's pheromones and what not going crazy over their body's what not when they're within a five block radius.

We don't bop around like pre teens in our living room, belting out "Call Me Maybe" on repeat after our first introduction. We don't wait patiently for them to text us for the first time and then spend HOURS trying to craft the perfect response back. We don't sift endlessly through outfits to figure out what to wear on dates, consulting third person parties to make sure our overall outfit says, "I won't fuck you tonight, but you should definitely want to fuck me in the future". 

Friendships just develop. Two people happen to be in the right place at the right time feeling equally sad or happy or stressed about their lives in a similar way and a bond is formed.

Sometimes it clicks instantly. A stranger you just met just GETS YOU. And you both are jumping up and down, white girl wailing "OMG I FUCKING LOVE YOU WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE?!?"

Sometimes it's your worst enemy. That chick you despise? The one who just irritates you for no good reason really? Yah. I'm sure you both could gab all day over pumpkin spice lattes because we all know hate and love are identical twin brothers from the same mother and you could easily mistake one for the other in the dark.

Whatever the situation these relationships between two humans come to be through the repetition of meeting and finding your SELF grooving with another self. A spiritual connection. A soul mate. 

Whoever said you get one soul mate in this life was severely unlucky. I've found them all over. Or maybe my soul's just slutty.

This weekend I celebrated the birth of one of my soul mates and she can tell you, I wasn't always her favorite. In fact, she didn't really have much use for me when we first met.

Of course that was back when I was a whiny, freshman girl crying over boys and now…well...I'm an older, still pretty whiny girl crying over boys, but somewhere in there she saw the real me or what not and fell madly in love. 

We were sitting at her kitchen table eating breakfast Saturday morning when she expressed her true feelings. 

"Lauren's my ride or die bitch". 

And it's true. I'm a die hard friend. But I am only that way because she's proven herself to be my die hard friend. And I've had die hard, tough as nails, would probably take a bullet for me, friends in the past that have taught me their ways in 'How To Be A Great Friend for Dummy's'.

The birthday girl for instance, is a force to be reckoned with. We are different in a million ways. She wears lovely dresses, I insist on dressing like a 12 year old boy. She is a lady in every sense of the word, and I have a mouth like a sailor and run around like a post pubescent boy who's just figured out how his penis works. Through all our differences though she has let me be me and me has always been enough. 

This weekend we cruised down the highway with our other two best friends in the car, "Oops I Did It Again" Pandora Radio blasting our way back to the past (how the hell do we still remember every word, riff, and odd late 90's pop drop that ever was?). The windows were down, the sun was warm through the chill of the fall, and the four of us were belting the lyrics subconsciously engrained in our brains forever, off key, in each other's faces. No fuck's to be found. 

Now that's true love.

I just want to state that this particular post has taken me days and days to write because I keep trying to include all the names and situations of all the people I love and have loved and I want to cry because I could write a short novel dedicated to people who have come into my life so unexpectedly and have been and continue to be a security net for all my crazy anxiety ridden breakdown and breakups. I trust they know who they are anyway. They have pulled me back from the cliff when I am insistent on jumping off. They have held me as I cried and never judged me for any of my weird, loud mouthed ways and words. They have always been at my birthday parties while I run around intoxicated from too much to drink and too much love from all the random and exquisite beings that gather in the same room at the same time for the sake of me.

They are the loves of my life.

If I ever meet a man who is set on boarding my crazy train, he better be ready to board their train too because I'm never letting them go. So it's their way or the highway. Like literally if you're not down for a N*SYNC sing along they'll kick you out of the car.

You ride with them, or you're dead to me.

Sincerely,

A "Break your neck if you mess with them" Record