As you all know (or SHOULD know by now) I am a member of the BlogHer community. I love reading the articles, interacting with the intelligent women, and reading different blogs. Every week, they highlight a blog post that was nominated by other BlogHers. BlogHer of the Week.
This week, the post was by a blogger who was musing about a dear friend of hers who let her feel ok to be quirky and weird. He was someone who let her feel comfortable in her own skin. She tells a really weird story about getting stoned with him and then having to save her mother from dying of an asthma attack, all the while laughing hysterically.
See the BlogHer post here. See the nominated post here.
I wanted to write about my friend who always made me feel that it was ok to be my own weird self. That friend is my Aschlie.
For a while we were just friends. She never really really got along with my best friend at the time and that kept a bit of a wedge between us….that and the fact that she was never really allowed to leave her house. Then, as she started enjoying some independence, we got really close. We used to do stupid stuff together all the time, spend time together doing nothing more than playing with plastic food on a trampoline at her mother’s house (we were at least 16 when we did this) and listening to Insane Clown Posse, Blood Hound Gang, and weird old people music.
After school, we would drive through Clarksburg and scare the little kids walking home from school. It wasn’t anything drastic, we would just drive by them, slow the car down, and whoever was in the passenger seat would punch the passenger door and make a loud *bang* and the little kids would jump, we’d laugh and drive away. One time, I was in the passenger seat and we came up on a kid and I made my *bang* noise and when the kid jumped and looked at us, I was horrified.
“Oh shit.” I said.
“What?” She asked me.
“I’m going to hell.”
“Huh?” She asked.
“I just scared a special kid!” I said.
Instead of getting upset or asking me what the hell was wrong with me, she laughed so hard that she nearly peed her pants. It’s something I have to hear about to this day, but I look back on it as a good day. Instead of making me feel bad about it, she laughed at my stupidity in a way that said “I love that your dumbass ways make me laugh!”
Another time, I was driving and was still learning. I was stopped at a light and I went to lean my head out of the window to see if I was over the yellow line in the road. But OOPS, the window was not down and I smashed my face into the window. It made a soft *thump* sound. I tried to play it cool and act like nothing happened, but when I looked over at her, her hand was over her mouth, her face was beet red, and there were tears streaming from her eyes. She’d seen the whole thing and was trying not to hee-haw at me.
My mom used to work at a small university that was famous for its basketball team. I used to love going to the games and Aschlie sometimes came with me. One time, we were sitting in the back seat of my mom’s car as she drove and we sat in the back seat with our faces smooshed against the windows making horrible faces at the other drivers on the road (again, we were probably 17 when we did this). Some of the people honked at us and flipped us off. It was great.
Our Senior year of high school, we started hanging out with my other great friend, Helen (and her sister Mary). We still tell the story of the time we all got drunk at a friend’s house, Helen puked everywhere and passed out on a dirty toilet seat, and Aschlie gave the pizza guy all of our money. Or that New Year’s Eve party at Helen’s house where I puked on Helen’s old blind dog and passed out before midnight. Or the time we had a part at Helen’s house and Helen almost got puked on by another friend.
I could and can be a complete jackass around these friends and know that they will still love me in the morning. They know me well enough not to judge me when I dweeb-out.
It was in the teen years when I most needed friends like that. I, like most other teens, was so unsure of who I should be. I liked band. I like being quiet and I like my square-peg friends. It was hard for me. I had people telling me that I needed to be something I wasn’t. Do you know how many times I had to hear, “But Somer. You’re so pretty. You should be a cheerleader.” I’m so embarrassed to admit that. Embarrassed like I just caught my mom in bed with my boyfriend. I hate to admit that people said that to me because I didn’t like hearing it even then. It was like I wasn’t living up to my “potential” by not trying to be some sort of “in kid”. It was like, because I was pretty, I was wasting something by being a band geek with crazy friends. But I loved my friends. I loved the band. I was awkward and weird myself and I always felt out of place because my looks somehow didn’t fit my personality.
But my friends never made me feel that way. They never said things to me that made me feel like I had to try to fit in somewhere else. They were more than glad to join me in good conversation, smack-talking, teenage idiocy, or a good game. I was lucky to have them. The ones that mattered stayed with me. I’ll always do what I can to keep them close.
I’m lucky that these people, particularly Aschlie, are still a big part of my everyday. We still live quite a ways from each other, we stay in touch thanks to Facebook and my blogs. I have friends who forgive me my shortcomings, have my back always, are more than willing to talk me down after a toxic friend purposely gets under my skin, love my kid simply because he’s mine, and jump right in when they see it’s time to bust Jessie’s balls.
I have friends who I’m still so comfortable with, just being with them makes me feel at home, or someplace similar. When we went into WV back in October, I was most comfortable when I was at the Hussmann’s house and at Aschlie’s place. And thanks to that visit, I have new memories of my friends. Of seeing Helen and Mary as mother’s to two of the most gorgeous little baby girls I have ever seen. Of meeting their super nice husbands and hearing them tell their stories in that perfect way that they do where even the most mundane tale makes you laugh. Of riding in a car with Aschlie and talking about politics and loving it even though we are polar opposites when it comes to such things. Of standing in front of my grandmother’s headstone with Aschlie and looking over at her and saying, “When you back out of here, how many headstones do you think you’ll mow over,” and having her laugh hysterically.
And I’ll end this post now with probably my favorite memory of Aschlie.
She had just gotten her driver’s license and her mother gave her a blue probe. It was a little beat up, but it was so nice to a couple of high school girls. She had stopped by her father’s place and gotten the mail and decided to read it while she was driving. All of a sudden, there was a loud screeching noise and I looked out of the passenger window and saw sparks flying up. She had drifted over and was scraping the guard rail. She squealed and jerked the car back onto the road.
“HOLY SHIT!” She said.
“Were you even looking at the road?” I asked.
“I only looked away for a minute to read the mail!”
“You were reading mail and not watching??” I asked.
“Only for a second!” She said.
“What the fuck did you think would happen if you took your eyes off the road?” I said through my tears of laughter.
“Shut the fuck up!” She said through her own hysterical giggling.
We almost made it to my house without incident. Almost. She drove almost the whole probe up on the curb, nearly mowing over a little elementary school kid who was playing crossing guard by my street. That was a great day, my friends. We sat in front of my house doubled over in our seats laughing so hard that we weren’t making a noise.
She drives much better now. I promise.
I love you guys.
