Ode to a Soulmate.

It was around 20 years ago when we were on rivaling soccer teams that I met my best friend. The story goes, or so she tells it as my memory sucks, that we both went after the same loose ball and somehow I got it away from her.

[Not sure if there is truth to me prevailing, as she has always been better than me at the game.]

Mad at her misfortune and my case of luck, the trash-talk of an 8 year old got the better side of her.

"Dummy!"

Not being familiar with such profane terms, I turned back to her. "What did you say?"

"Nothin."

A few weeks later, I'd be her teammate and some most of my best memories have been with her since.

• Our bus rides to and from soccer games. I never had to be Forrest Gump because it was known, the numbers 2 & 3 sat together. No question. We might've created a few handshakes in transit inspired by the one, the only, Fresh Prince of Bel Air (it was the 90's).
• Attempting to exterminate our ladybug infested 8x8 dorm room in Bloss Hall. With scotch tape.
• Watching Nick @ Nite before bedtime and other Disney Channel shows recommended for a tween audience, not for college students. We were in Bloss at this time.
• Entering a drawing during a road trip in California to go to the Academy Awards, actually winning, and returning a year later to be on the red carpet.
• Trying to speak Greek when we decided that was the place we needed to be during Junior year.
• Oh, and Barcelona.
• Road trips that led us to Canada, Tijuana, Disneyland.
• Living together all four years of college. It's unheard of for most women to maintain friendship status, let alone best, at the end of that.

I bought 'Soul Pancake' the other day. It's a book by Rainn Wilson and a few others that poses really difficult questions about life. Seriously, really thought provoking questions that challenge your brain piece to think about your life's philosophy or help you to create one. There was a page that asked you about soulmates; whether you believe in them, how to define them, how not to define them. Most of us use this term exclusively in the context of the romantic and I'm not sure that I believe in them in that whole context. But I do believe in them in another.

To find the same things funny (some of it dark, weird and utterly unfunny to anyone else), to create some of the most elaborate inside jokes (too many to remember or name), to have a common history, and to be able to truly be myself with no censor involved and never hear an ill word to judge me (there have been times where I judged me)-I believe that to be a soulmate.

I don't believe everyone has or even is lucky enough to find their soulmate. I'm glad I met mine when I was 8.

In earnest, I have no idea where I'd be without her and I credit her for some of the biggest adventures and risks I've taken in my life. I'm sure we'll be making them well into our 80's.

It was around 20 years ago when I met my best friend. She turns 28 today. She's never been much for celebrations, but there's no way I cannot not celebrate her and her place in my life.

You slowbug, are my favorite. You are my soulmate.

[In Crete at The Palace of Phaestos.]