Go Waiting For The Stars, To Come Showering Down, From Moscow To Mars, Universe Falling Down

--"Star", Erasure

One of the long-standing tenets of our friendship has always been the idea that we can call each other twenty-four hours a day even if the reason for the call cannot exactly be classified as an emergency. I've used this caveat for many inane calls in my day--from calling to ask if Breanne thought I would make a good zombie to calling to wake her up on many a quarter-birthday and three-quarter birthday. I used to drive her crazy because I would call on the smallest of whims whereas she has always felt that her calls were more warranted in nature.

However, these days the extent of our calls usually lands in the more typical category. We call to catch up. We call to discuss something deeply personal that's affecting both of us. Very rarely does this clause in our friendship agreement ever get utilized. The only time it does get utilized is on nights like tonight where I'm leaving a friend's house after 3 a.m. and I'm a little wary of trying to drive home somewhat drowsy. I mean--I'm usually great at driving home late because I'm a night owl anyway. Yet there have been nights where I just didn't feel like risking out. On those nights it really pays to have a friend who is just getting up as I'm winding down for the night. When it's 3 a.m. here and I'm driving back on the North 405 I'm confident that Little Miss Chipper is just getting up for her morning jog. It's usually no problem for me to just call her and have her talk to me while I'm driving. Even if means pushing back her jog twenty to forty minutes, she's usually game.

I don't know if she's exactly saved my life on those occasions. She certainly has given me a sense of security that I'm really not alone out on the road when I'm driving home that late. Somebody's going to know if I don't make it back safely. Somebody's going to care if I'm still out there at that hour.

It's the same thing I used to do for her when was running away from home as a kid. There'd she be walking out of her house at four or five in the morning, and she'd call me to ascertain if it was a good idea or not. I'd tell her nope and she'd still leave anyhow. But then when she inevitably came back the next day or the day after, she'd tell me that it mattered that she told me when she left and where she was probably headed towards. She'd tell me that it mattered somebody was worried about her right from the get go. Whereas at four in the morning none of her other friends would be awake, I'd still be doing something at one in the morning here. Or, what was also a common occurrence, I'd be awake here when she'd call me from a pay phone at a relative's or friend's house. I'd talk to her from here to attempt to convince her to go home once more. And whereas most people would fail to change her almighty stubborn mind, I had a pretty good success rate at pointing her homewards again.

Maybe there's a reason we had that point in the friendship agreement highlighted from day one. Perhaps that we knew with the difference in time zones and our penchant for crossing in the middle of the night we were in the perfect position to provide a service for one another. Perhaps the foundation of our friendship is that we sometimes function as the rotating guard mentality, whenever one of us is feeling scared and alone, and is starting to lose hope against the night, the other is up and alert to cover the other. When I'm feeling sleepy or worried or grumpy, she's just the rooster to startle me into staying awake for a bit longer until I'm safe in my bed again. And when she was feeling lost and lonely, I was still chugging along after midnight to be some kind of lighthouse to let her know that there's somebody out in the world watching out for her.

I just like knowing there's at least one person who'll take my call during those hours when everyone else won't.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers