i saw laura today.

we go way back, almost five years, and i know i've told the story of when/how we met and how exactly we got to be friends, here it is for any and all of you who would need/like a refresher on that one. not counting the camp we met at and seeing each other there again a year later, we've seen each other six times, which i guess is odd for someone who is as good a friend to me as she is, especially considering that we've known each other as long as we have.

i've written before, or at least alluded to, about how stringently i define the word "friend," that it's not a word that i at all tend to throw around haphazardly, and that for me to really and truly call someone a friend an mean it in a way that's more than a mere figure of speech that there has to be a pretty significant relationship there. laura and i have that, and even though it wasn't like i'd forgotten about it or how great she is or anything like that, getting to spend time with her today was like finding a hundred dollar bill in the pocket of some jeans bound for the laundry.

today, i went to church with her and we went to lunch afterward, we'd been planning this day for months, like since august, and we ended up spending about four good hours together. to be really honest, i was a bit nervous about the whole thing, you know how it is when you build up expectations of something for so long (part of the reason i don't do countdowns, they inevitably lead to letdowns) and on top of that we'd never spent that much time with each other. laura's the youngest out of all the people i consider friends, and neither of us has been great about writing letters since i moved out here. i wondered if there was really much more there than just the novelty of writing letters to someone so far away.

in the end, those fears were, in some ways for nothing, because they didn't get realized, but in that they didn't get realized, they were good for something because they helped me appreciate what a friendship i have with her, to understand the love that's there. that day was even better than i'd imagined it to be, and make no mistake, despite my slight trepidaciousness, i'd imagined that it would be awesome.

thanks laura, you're the best.

feeling: understood
thinking of: today
music: "living in your letters" dashboard confessional