Bean and I
Originally uploaded by loreferguson.

Have you ever had a friend, just one, with whom it was impossible to not be yourself?

Perhaps because they've known you long enough to know what you look like with blue framed glasses and leggings and an eighth grade graduation diploma and Rich Mullins CD's. Perhaps it's because you shared the lead roles in a play that wouldn't change your life, but the hours spent practicing would. Perhaps it's because you lived down the road from each other and felt okay with digging around in the other's refrigerator. Perhaps it's because you filled a time capsule in 1995 and planned to open it in 2000, planning things to look a lot differently than they did, but opening it just the same. Perhaps it's because they held your sobbing shoulders and never said a word the night your brother was killed, or the night you found out your parents really were getting a divorce, or the night you clutched the phone to your ear and sobbed, wishing they were holding your shoulders. Perhaps you're yourself with them because they've watched you vomit every night for weeks and cried along with you on the cold green cinder block floor of a Guatemalan bathroom. Perhaps it's because they let you fly home when enough was enough. Perhaps you're friends with them because you can always depend on them to shake you out of your moods and give you a well needed kick on the backside. Perhaps you're friends with them because they've climbed all the Adirondack high peaks, biked the coastline of Maine, and explored the caves of West Virginia and its cool to know people like that. Perhaps it's just because you can share clothes with them, or ideas with them, or life with them.

Whatever it is, let it be said that I know someone with whom I can be completely myself, knowing that in that fullness [whatever it looks like] I am loved. And so I love in return.

Send some love her way -- April in Guatemala can get lonely and hot and her 23rd birthday is in three days: maxajawer@juno.com