We are family (sing along!)

I am 31 years old. My oldest friendship is with my friend Emily. We have been friends for 25 years. Let me introduce you.

Emily and I lived down the street from each other, and our parents still live in the same houses today. We lived down by the lake, and our houses are about a five minute walk from each other. We were the first ones on the bus, and the last ones to get off...you could say we lived out in the boonies.


Em has the best memory of anyone I've ever known, but I come in a close second. We both remember our very first conversation, which happened on the first day of school while waiting in the bus line together. I was in first grade, she was in kindergarten:


Me: Don't you hate it when your parents smoke?

Emily: You have bad breath.

Me: But I brushed with Crest!

And lo, a friendship was born.


I've always seen Emily as popular, social, and fun-loving. She doesn't care what other people think of her, loves to have a good time, and will kick your ass if necessary.


I, on the other hand, see MYSELF as somewhat socially awkward, very tightly wound, and obsess every MINUTE about what people think of me (please send me many loving comments or I will cry).


Em and I were in different grades in school, and we ran with different crowds, but our friendship has thrived through it all. She really is the sister I never had - I often buy her birthday cards meant for sisters.


Some highlights of our childhood?


Dressing up her brother as a girl - we called him Stephanie.


Annual birthday parties for our commune of Cabbage Patch Kids (shout out to Leah Mimi and Rhona Portia, our oldest "children").

Playing school. I was the teacher, of course. The bossiness - it consumes me.


Swimming in her family's private lake cove behind their house: Our favorite water games to play were "Drowning", "Baptism", and a game and song we invented called "Rip and Ride".


Sawing down a "tree" (I use the term "tree" verrrrry loosely) to decorate on her porch every Christmas. Yes, our parents let us loose in the woods, alone, with a hack-saw.


Going trick-or-treating / toilet-papering every Halloween. We were Cindy Lauper / Madonna for several years running.


Playing our favorite made-up game, "Hot Girls"...we would put on our Flash-Danciest clothes and use the dog-house as our apartment.


Recording ourselves on the tape-deck. I still have a bunch of tapes of me and Emily "hosting" our pretend radio request show, singing, and playing piano together.

Our shared passion for the New Kids On the Block, culminating in the attendance of two concerts together - this is the first:

And a million inside jokes and crazy escapades that I could just never do justice to in print.


And then there was high school. We kind of moved in our own directions at that point, and ran with different groups, although I did go to parties at her house now and then.


Then, in college, we lived in an apartment together for a year. Just one year. I am thankful our friendship survived it - I think we nearly killed each other a time or two. While Emily was exploring life, sleeping late, and "finding" herself, I was freaking out over every test and never skipping a class (that came later).


As adults?

We were bridesmaids in each others weddings.

She trusted me to make her wedding cake.

Once, while I was passed out sunbathing on the dock, my husband was wrestling her in the lake and lost his wedding ring in the process (a diver recovered it - that's a story for another day).


It was at her bachelorette party that I went to the local gay bar for the first time, and ended up tipping the strippers in the drag queen show.


We call each other first in case of the random Crisis or Emergency (example - "I'm at Walgreen's and holy shit I think I'm pregnant"..."I'm on my waaaaaaay!!!!")

We share clothes and makeup.

I brought her food cravings to her door during her pregnancy - she invites me over and props me up on the most comfy spot on the couch to zone out with pizza and ridiculous TV.

We stood outside the door waiting while each of us delivered our babies.

And then, Sunday night, we had a Poison party. MTV (VH1?) debuted Bret Michael's (lead singer of Poison) new reality show, "Rock of Love", and she invited me over to eat pizza and watch the show, since Poison was our favorite hair band back in the day.

To surprise her, I showed up in the best trashy 80's get-up I could muster while 9 months pregnant, complete with "BRET" written in lipliner on my (ample and pregnant) bosom - I prayed all the way there that I would not get in a car accident.



And what can I say? When you have known each other for as long as we have, I guess you think alike:

Stacey and Emily, circa 1989...eerily similar, don't you think?

She, being the braver one, had the job of explaining to the pizza delivery girl WHY we looked like hair-band groupies.



And now, I'm on my third baby, she's just had her first. Her daughter and my newest daughter will be 8 months apart in age, just like us.

We both tear up when we watch our little girls together. I hope when they are 30, that they can both say, "She's my oldest friend - I've known her all my life."