My best girl's birthday

It’s gotten way too late and we’re somewhere in Frankfurt, Germany, sitting on a street corner, willing for the Uber app to get us a ride. This is so classic, you say. Classics never go out of style. We tiptoe up the stairs to your room but not before grabbing the ice cream. We’re still humming Rosalia and staring at the ceiling while we both take off our makeup, with the easy remover wipes that will most definitely make my skin break out tomorrow. And so went all the Friday nights. Sometimes our weekends would start with me joining your dad’s weekly Shabbat dinner (I still have dreams about that secret sauce of his), other times you’d borrow my mom’s “lounge dress” to sit at my desk and finish up your essay. But they always ended the same, and when the lights came on and everyone started picking up plastic cups off the floor, we never worried about how we were getting home.I don’t know how I feel about the idea of soulmates, but maybe if there really was a soul that mine was predestined to share halves with, it would have been you. Can you believe how long it’s been since we saw each other? There’s probably no use putting a count on the years when the total will sum up to forever. Forever and our plans for each other’s weddings, our shared vineyard in France, our future cars we declared when we were fifteen. I’ve already told you this, but you’re the coolest girl I know. Any chance I get, I’ll mention to anyone who will listen that my best friend is serving in the military. Sometimes when I read about what’s going on in the news, my heart sinks a little bit. You seem happier than ever, though, and my only real complaint is that I don’t get to be right next to you for it. Every April that comes around, I equate to your birthday. How lucky I got to know I’ll always have you in my corner, the way I’ll always be in yours. The distance won’t let us get waffles at Central or Jägerbombs at Helium this year, so this silly little column is my birthday gift to you. Funnily enough, the song “Feels Like” by Gracie Abrams just came up on shuffle as I write this. Sometimes I commit tiny bluffs in my writing for artistic purposes, but this particular happy coincidence is actually true. She says she wrote this song about her best friend. It sings like a love song, but the sentiment is only really synonymous to the adoration and fondness of an indelible friendship — “I would do whatever you wanted.”To the girl who is always down to do it all with me, no matter how questionable. Who stood by my side through regrettable high school decisions and constant cafeteria drama. Who napped with me through free periods and danced out of the graduation ceremony with me. You’re somewhere training and being a badass independent woman, while I’m procrastinating an analytics assignment and this goes to print. Just you wait and I’ll give you a copy, wrapped up in a bow. To Nel, my number one girl.  Happy twenty-first birthday. I can’t wait to celebrate worth all that’s overdue and more. I’d do whatever you wanted. 

Love,

Reyna