Happily ever after.....

On an ordinary day in May, I was delivering the mail to Dr. Kaplan, Endocrinologist, 5555 Nesconset Hwy.  As I picked up his outgoing mail, I also picked up my new best friend.

I'd seen her day after day and we had never said more than "Hi" as I dropped the mail in the designated receptacle, until the day I walked in and she was shedding tears all over her reception desk.

"What's wrong?" I asked.  Only a cold fish wouldn't have asked.  Thinking she would blow me off and say "nothing" wiping her tears, I was wrong.  She didn't.

"My boyfriend dumped me and told me to move out of his apartment.  I'm moving in with my grandmother."

Having been recently divorced and struggling with bouts of depression myself, most weekends when my kids were with their Dad I typically didn't even get out of my favorite spaghetti stained sweats, let alone my driveway.  After a work week filled with bouts of insomnia, sleep mattered more than my lack of a social life.  Looking upon another desperate soul I recognized her vulnerability and swooped in like a hawk on prey and boldly asked her, "Do you want to meet for coffee after work and talk about it?"

"Okay." She replied somewhat cautiously with a reluctant look in her eyes. Her desperation didn't turn me off.  It rather intrigued me.

Halfway through our cup of coffee, we were both hooked on our budding friendship in spite of the fact that I was ten years older and a single parent to teenagers. I'd experienced love at first sight and head over heals before with the opposite sex, but does this happen with platonic friends?

Nicknames may seem more appropriate in grammar school but we had no shame in calling each other by our given pet name that we came up with at one of our many happy hour outings.  She was my Sashi and I was her Bashi.  She could talk me into most anything, dragging me to places I'd never been.  When at one joint I experienced my first shot ever; Jagermeister.  We'd dance till our feet hurt, ocassioanally giving out our number to guys; usually a bogus number.  We never left anyplace without each other and we laughed on our ride home about the evening's shenanigans.  

We cooked together at my house with my kids, helping them with their homework, and afterwards we'd watch a mindless TV show;  Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Blossom, Full House..., and my house was full of laughter and love.  Sleep came easy; I started exercising and felt and looked better than I had in years.

After two years of our together fun, my Sashi said out of the blue, "I'm such a loser.  I'm 27 years old, living in my grandmother's house with no prospects, working in a dead end job.  I'm going back to school."

It was the first time I heard her truly sound down in the dumps since the day we met.  It was then I realized I had never heard her complain about her circumstances much at all. She had given so much of herself to me, more then I realized I needed; so much laughter, so many smiles.

"Going back to school is a fantastic idea! Let's go out to celebrate."

I took hold of the evening's event reins.  

"Where are we going?" She asked.

"Leave the details up to me." I replied.  "Go pretty yourself up and meet me in my car."

When she got in the car I announced, "I'm not going to blindfold you, but I am going to give you instructions. This is what we are going to do. Tonight you are not Sashi and I am not Bashi.  Think of who you want to be.  Change everything; your profession; your history;  even your name. Let's improv and see where it takes us." 

We had little time to plan, so we meandered our way through the evening improvisationally, I as Melinda an anesthesiologist, she as Vivian a trial lawyer.  We navigated through the crowd at the club, Heffrons, each as an alter ego, side by side, pulling off this rouse to perfection and we left laughing out loud while recounting our performance all the way home.

The following semester my Sashi did go back to school.  She then landed a dream job and latter that year around the same time, both of us met our husbands to be.

Fast forward decades, she's now a happily married Mom of teenagers and I'm retired, but every now and then we make a Sashi and Bashi date, tearing it up as best we can one more time as happily ever after smiling old besties.