Holly's Home * O Happy Day!*

My sweet Holly is home, y'all! I just love this girl.
We met if not the first day, it had to have been the first week that I loaded up my stuff in my little Honda Civic hatchback and unpacked it in my dorm room. Me, the wide eyed freshman ready for anything (mostly just a good time) while she was the thoughtful, studious sophomore.
Before school started that year I had gotten a job at a Christian book store and had made a few friends. One of them, the owner's son who was a sophomore at HBU(and was to become my boyfriend), was a good friend of Holly's and he had told me I needed to meet her. So, I really think it was my first day there at the dorm and I wandered down, a little shyly to meet this "Holly" girl. She had a roomate named Sotheary and I knew pretty quickly that we were going to be friends for a long time. I mean, who isn't immediately taken by her generosity, sincerity and compassion?
After my freshman year, Holly, Sotheary and I moved into an apartment across the street from the university. We loved it. It was actually a pretty big apt. that we got for a song. Holls and So shared a room while I had one to myself. I have so many great memories from that time. She was a great influence and encouragement for me during a time when all I was really looking to do was just enough schoolwork to maintain my scholarship and play the rest of the time. Holly was pretty much the opposite. She needed me and Sotheary to remind her of the fun we were also there to have. Oh, and that musty old couch and chair. I'm not sure what that smell was!
Anyway, eventually, Holly graduated a year before me, moved to an apartment on her own and started to teach while I finished my last year living at my parents'. (Yes, it was hard to go back.) Then when I graduated I moved in with her and, man, did we need each other. Those first teaching years are really tough.
Holly's seen me through a lot. More than a few boyfriends and broken hearts, frutsration with students and an administrator, running from God to do what I want, a tattoo, my cleaning obsession, and, oh, the horrible barbecue/white shirt incident which I won't even tell here. And eventually, was instrumental in Reed's proposal plan and happily, though with understandable fear of losing her best friend, stood right beside me as I pledged forever to love my Reed. We've logged countless hours on staircases, couches and on the phone just talking, crying and encouraging (and we're still adding those up!). Then I was there loading her on the plane to London unable to let her go until I had to at the airport nine months pregnant, knowing this, even a ten hour plane ride, would not deter our friendship. And it hasn't.
It's no accident she is my best friend and I look forward to the many more events that we will share together, good and bad. I hope you have a friend like my Holly, and if you do, call her and tell her ya love her! Aren't girlfriends the best?!