Usually living with your best friend is a sure way to end your friendship with that person, but living with my best friend, Sarah, has been the single greatest decision of my life. Here’s why.
We laugh.
Sometimes at ourselves. Mostly at each other. Here's the process: We sprawl on the kitchen floor to snack (on dark chocolate, and weirdly enough, GrapeNuts), tell stories (“One time I liked a guy, so I destroyed him.”), reflect on fond memories (“Remember when you threw that squash on the floor?” “Oh yeah!” “...” “...Why did I do that?”), weep (Certified Sarah tip: Keep two spoons in the freezer. Press against eyelids to prevent next-day swelling), and finally laugh uproariously (at impressions of our dads and plans to start a one act entitled "Your Father's Feet: Memoirs from the Lives of Jim and Jerry.").
We talk about everything.
We discuss everything from poop, bonding over our bowels, to heartbreak to dinner plans. It’s free therapy.
We're feminists.
We inspire each other to have confidence in ourselves. In the words of Amy Poehler referenced by Tina Fey and repeated by Sarah to me, “I don’t fucking care if you like it.” That’s the Poehler part. Here’s the Glasgow part: “This is for you, not them.”
We stay connected to our inner children.
As a theater major, Sarah is an artist perfecting her craft. Or at least that’s her excuse for practicing a choreographed lacrosse ball dance of her own invention to the song “Side Pony.” Picture Hermione Granger with a bushy parrot of hair on her shoulder, flicking her arms up and down to the words, “Baby I’m just living my life,” and you get the idea. She’s quite an inspiration, to say the least.
We love to eat.
Once, Sarah made me a breakfast burrito that was so delicious I began to weep. Try as I might, I could not cease the watery stream of love and affection pouring from my eyes. Sarah had to extricate herself from the room before things got too emotional. The next day, she pulled me in for a hug and said, “I didn’t know what to do at the time, but that was actually really sweet.”
We listen to NPR.
For months, I tried to resist this annoyingly adult habit. But I finally broke; I actually enjoy “All Things Considered.” Now Sarah and I can spend our Friday nights trying to figure out what’s happening with the Oregon embassy building nonsense and learning about the domestication of foxes.
We care about each other.
We’ve been there for each other through the good (Sarah getting cast in a show; me writing some neat stuff), the bad (May was rough), and the ugly (we’ve discovered that I’m a laugh-crier, which I assure you is not a pretty sight). Not to mention Sarah has lifted me from one of the lower places in my life to genuine happiness.
I don’t know how Sarah and I are best friends and also live together because that almost never works out, but I’m eternally grateful. Does this count as thanking her? I’m not good at confrontation.
