Best Friends, Kelli Jo and Phantom Pain

Everyone has friends. Some people have a lot of friends (Like me, I'm poplar y'all and yes I spelled that wrong on purpose). Growing up I didn't have a lot of friends, I was grounded a LOT due to my smart mouth, but that is beside the point. When I was in first grade I had my very first "Best friend in the whole wide world". Her name was Eddie Russell and I loved that girl so much. Of course we grew up, made other friends and grew apart. I had another best friend in junior high school, but I was stingy and didn't want her to have other friends so when she got another friend that she hung around with, I quit being her friend. Then I met Kelli Jo. We had so much in common, and she was part of the "popular" crowd which the former friend and I had looked at and longed to be a part of, and here I was now, friends with one of the popular girls!! Kelli Jo and I were best friends for three years until sophomore year, when another girl kind of wedged her way between us. I threw my signature fit and gave Kelli and ultimatum and we stopped being friends for a long time. That is when I started being friends with Sonya Parish, my neighbor. We had so much fun hanging out, eating French fries and doing our make up and hair. We were best friends. I would ride to school with her and her brother, Curt who was always so nice to me. Then I quit school because I had so many health problems and Sonya graduated and went to college and became a teacher, I am so proud of her. Curt her brother is a dear friend of mine now, he is a computer geek like my fiancé Barry, now and we still talk almost daily on the Facebook. The only friend from my childhood that I was still in touch with was Craig Gregory, whom I had been in love with for several years in Junior high and high school.I got over that and he went and joined the service and retired from the Air Force a few months ago. I floated around with a few friends during my adult years and then when I got pregnant with my daughter I found out Kelli Jo was pregnant too. We had been feuding for several years over stupid things one or the other of us said or did, but I truly missed her, and that phantom friend pain was terrible. When we were pregnant we started talking again, albeit tentatively, and it was like we were never apart. Kelli and I are best friends to this day and even though I have a lot of friends, and I call them all my bestie, Kelli Jo is the one true constant friend in my life. Back a few years ago I had made a new friend, she was handicapped too and we got really close, then she got a divorce and lost her mind, running around doing drugs, staying out all night, making meth in her bathtub and such and I got worried about her daughter who was three our four years old being in amidst all that crazy and I snitched to her ex. I hate a snitch unless there is a child involved I would never tell on a best friend, but I had to that one time because I was terrified for the child. She quit speaking to me for a long time then we started hanging out again in 2009 after I almost died. She was still off her rocker, running wild and partying all the time. A few months ago we stopped being friends again because she got with a crazy man, literally he is diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic and she told him I said a bunch of crazy stuff that I didn't say and he was sending me threatening emails and text messages talking about having his vengeance on me for trying to destroy his life. I just stopped talking to her because I was afraid and she started calling and sending hateful messages on facebook so I blocked her. I have that phantom friend pain every once in a while, missing her a little bit mostly because she understood my pain and being sick all the time, but I have a new friend, Summer who actually loves me. We have so much fun together and she has a lot of health issues too and so we compare our sicko problems and hang out as often as we can. She is really awesome and she is one of the best friends I have ever had besides Kelli Jo. Kelli and I have the kind of friendship that will last forever. I know if I called her right now at 6:00 a.m. and asked her to come get me she would, no questions asked, even though she lives two hours away. Kelli is the friend that it wouldn't just be a periodic phantom pain, it would tear my heart out and leave me bleeding and helpless, dying on the floor, if we ever stopped being friends again. Someone said the other day that the term best friend is childish and clingy, I don't feel that way. I have many, many friends and I call several of them my "bestie" because they are all the best. I love them all equally, but in different ways. I guess this is just mostly me rambling, but I wanted to tell you all my theory of best friends and what the term means to me. I love Kelli Jo just a tiny bit more though, because she is my soul mate as far as friends go. She is the sister of my heart. She makes me laugh so hard it hurts over absolutely nothing but a look. We giggle over everything when we are together and no one gets me like she does. We know each other better than we know ourselves and I wanted to pay tribute to her. I love my best bestie and if that is childish and clingy then I am proud to be that. I am up way too early, with way too little coffee in my system so if this makes no sense that is why. I love you, Kelli Jo.