I rarely write posts about real people. Of course, I mention them in passing all the time but a full-fledged dedication is something only three people so far have been lucky enough to acquire. One of them loved it, one didn’t care and the other didn’t notice. This time, however, I’ve picked someone who I know will notice, sooner or later, because she ALWAYS reads my blog. She is one of my best friends from school, someone I’ve known since the eighth grade and still get along with in a unique, special way.
Today is her birthday. And although I can’t be with her or even call her, I want to make her day by writing this post. I know it’ll mean something to her even though she will probably read it several days later,
When I first met my friend, I didn’t like her at all. She seemed crazy and talked way too much than I considered normal. But as usually seems to happen with people I initially don’t like, she went on to become an integral part of my life. She helped me open up, come out of the shell of low self-esteem I had been cowering under since a young age, and blossom into a friendly, witty, and sharp person.
She is beautiful (as opposed to just pretty), smart (as opposed to just intelligent), sweet, sensitive, caring, and both sensible and crazy at the same time. She is one of the few people who has her priorities sorted and hasn’t let university life in a foreign country change the person that she is. She has her values and her principles firmly in place, and although she loves to have a laugh, she’s always known where to draw the line. She is also a gifted artist and a good writer.
At first, I always saw her as the kind of girl I could never be friends with: she is popular and fun and gets a lot of attention from the opposite sex, whereas I am just quiet and plain and mostly unnoticed. But once she had me talking, I couldn’t seem to hold myself back and we grew to be inseparable. We did have our fair share of fights and fall outs, and I often used to lose my mind when she made it a habit of doing things that irritated me, but in the end, I could never resist joining into her gleeful laughter and just letting go.
Thanks to her, and our two other best friends, the later years of my school life were full of funny moments and happy memories. I remember meeting her first thing in the morning and walking around the school as we talked about homework and what we’d had for breakfast that day. I always had the usual stuff – cereals and toast - whereas she experimented with things like popcorn and coke or samosas. She would sometimes make samosas herself and bring them for us to taste. They were quite delicious. I remember how the Principal would often tell her off for her shoes being too high-heeled or her trousers being too flared or her tie being improperly fastened and it made no difference at all to her. She’s never been one to follow too many rules. And that's something I've imbibed from her. :P
I remember her heavy pencil-case full of gel pens in every color which she would use to draw patterns on the corners of my notebooks as we sat in class, and I remember our chats about boys as we worked in the Chemistry lab, or rather she worked while I just watched because I was useless at handling all that apparatus. I remember eating hot chips (French fries) at the canteen, which she sprinkled with a bit too much salt and lots of ketchup and vinegar. I remember how her nostrils would flare whenever she tried to lie, and the fancy, sexy bun she fastened her long hair in. I remember how she would talk in funny accents to make me laugh and how she was always a sport, no matter what horrible new pranks people (read: boys) would play on her.
I remember her getting into embarrassing situations and then laughing like crazy about them, and I remember how she enriched my vocabulary with the choicest of swear words. I remember us cursing the Chemistry teacher who wouldn’t give us the marks we deserved, and secretly imitating the Biology teacher who had a problem with pronunciations. Most of all, I remember the time she threw her shoe at someone but it went and hit a school prefect instead and she ended up with detention. The memory still makes me laugh out loud all these years later.
I haven’t seen my friend ever since I left Kenya, almost six years ago, and we've only spoken on the phone a couple of times, but yet I don’t think anything’s changed between us. I still feel she’s someone I can count on no matter what situation I’m in. The distance does make it a lot harder to keep up with each other’s lives but I think inside, we both know that nothing can change what we have as long as we don’t allow it to. She is still the sweet, loving, carefree, uninhibited, impulsive yet sensible person that I knew her as, and I pray to God that he makes her every birthday super special and blesses her with all the joy and success she deserves. And hopefully, one day, we’ll meet again and it’ll be just like the good old days…except that it’ll be better.
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