(Yes, I am aware it's Tuesday, eat my shorts)
Tonight, at the way past my bedtime hour of 10:15, I'll be at the airport. But I'm the lucky one-- I only have to clean my house and drive 15 minutes to the airport. Smartmama, my old college roommate and best friend of 13 years, has to drive herself and her two boys to another state, get all three of them on the plane and fly for six hours on two separate flights to Texas. And since we all know that Texas is no picnic in the summer, it's a major sacrifice on smartmama's part. But it's not the first time smartmama has sacrificed for me. I'll do a quick recap of some of the highlights...
1) She decided to keep me as her roommate, even after I sent her a letter (as a joke) introducing myself as the girl who liked monster trucks, loud country music, and a host of other scary and un-smartmama like things.
2) She didn't dump me for other friends when I got to college and immediately started dating Eddie, which meant that I spent every possible waking moment with him. She mostly got my inert form on the mattress.
3) Well, number 2 isn't entirely true, because I probably put in a good two hours a day on her computer freshman year, playing solitaire.
4) She nursed me back to mental health when Eddie left on his mission, and even helped me make the most kick-butt care packages ever to send to him in the MTC.
5) She hooked me up with a sweet apartment at the Glenwood ;) with the friends she had been busy hanging out with while I spent all of my freshman year with Eddie.
6) She let me read her every letter he sent me and listened to me sob about how much I missed him and how jealous I was that our other roommate was getting letters from her boyfriend on his mission that called her his "eternal wife" while I was getting letters from Eddie that said things like "be sure to put yourself out there and date."
7) She spent her 21st birthday wearing the world's most hideous Laura Ashley bridesmaid dress at my wedding.
8) She rescued me from my first real married fight. For some reason I had thought it would be easy to make eight kinds of Christmas cookies in one night in my closet-sized kitchen. When I started to panic and Eddie refused to help me get out of this disaster of my own making, smartmama came over and finished my baking while I went to bed, sobbing. (I swear, I don't cry this much).
9) She didn't pick an ugly dress when I was a bridesmaid in her wedding.
10) She helped me fly out to her house a few years ago when we were broke and I was feeling depressed and cooped up in a new city with two babies and no friends.
11) She didn't ditch me as a friend when I got pregnant with Isaac "by accident" when she had already been going through 2 years of infertility treatments.
But friends, today's trip to TX might be the biggest sacrifice of all. I know how hard it is to travel with little kids. But you really have to love someone to be willing to fly for six hours by yourself with two of them. I have just one word of advice, smartmama-- drugs. They are your friends. And yes, it will end. I have a comfy bed waiting at the end of the road for you!
P.S. The only thing I sacrificed in return was my clothes. In college we always traded clothes. Smartmama only did laundry when she ran out of underwear (or about every six weeks). So if she borrowed something from me, I knew I might not see it again for a month and a half. Oh well, she was worth it!
--originally published 6/28/06
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