why andrea is amazing

once upon a time i had a very good friend with a bad habit of finding girls to love who hated me. seeing this pattern emerge and endure was hard for me, but i knew i was lucky to have found my happiness and wasn't about to deny him his, even if ultimately i feared it would draw away his friendship and he would be lost to me. im so noble. actually i was a huge baby about it.

and then, one day, he surprised me.

i was throwing a huge last party for my brother before he left for army basic training. all of our friends caravaned to my house for a night of revelry. it was this night i met andrea. i recall bits and pieces of the night, but mostly its a blur. i remember thinking she was lovely, with piercings and tats and technicolor hair, rocking her perfect bikini bod in my dining room (where the hot tub was). i also thought what a shame it was that this vibrant girl was going to hate me, cause she was so cool.

and then, she didn't.

in fact, we connected. we had so much in common... it was like opening the door and being betsies at first sight. i felt like all of my time in cny i had spent 25 minutes away from another version of me and i must actually be quite awesome, cause she was.

and when my now hubby called up her now hubby to share the news of our engagement... so were they

and when we were dealing with the delights of our wedding planning, so were they.

and we celebrated each others weddings and they marched on and we waited, afraid of the next few steps.

andrea struggled through losses, and heartaches, and betrayals that i cannot fathom throughout this period. im sure any of those would have cowed me. not andrea. andrea has one stunning attribute that i have long lacked.

andrea has a perfect paper heart. cotton paper i believe. stacked deeper than the world. nothing so cold and impersonal as gold for andrea. her heart burns with love, passion, and friendship, and lights the way. andreas heart guides her, and her family, and not just a few others. her heart is strengthened from its troubles, and yet not locked away behind glass as mine would be were it not already a shiny small black thing i wear around my finger. her heart is strong enough for all of that and yet like the cotton paper its made from we all leave our marks on it. some shallow, some deep, some indelibly inked. and in her heart she holds these marks and knows they make her ever more perfect and beautiful.

she plays her own tunes, and finds her own fun, and loves her own loves,

and in being her very own engine inspires me most of all that i can too.

andrea reminds me that despite how i view the world,

there are strange treats around every corner

she shows me that being strong is beautiful,

but that softness isn't the same as weakness.

because even in our differences

we're even more the same.