Happy birthday, Kaydee!

Kaydee and I went to school together beginning in kindergarten but it wasn't until fifth grade that we became real friends. The following summer we tearfully expressed our mutual love for one another and became official best friends. We passed notebooks back and forth in school to write notes to each other, we created a secret handshake, and we made up nicknames for other people and actions so we could talk about them freely while they were around. We went to the creek near her house and treated it like a huge adventure. We spent days at the pool, and evenings at Chili Peppers for the monthly ska night. She cried at the meanish sarcastic way my family communicates and I grew uncomfortable with the emotional nature of her family's interactions. We became unofficial members of each other's families.

I have always been pretty nerdy and bookish. By the time I was 7 or so, I was shockingly shy and reserved. Kaydee was the opposite. She loved it when people called her "weird" (but not "strange"!), and she was very theatrical and outspoken. Through our odd-couple type friendship, she really encouraged me to come out of my shell and to make my nerdiness something fun about myself rather than something to separate me from other people. Kaydee is and has always been intensely creative, which was something else she encouraged me to be also. She would force me (often against my will) to participate in art projects with her, to act in plays we created, to join an art and acting organizations at school, and to look at every day activities with a whimsical, imaginative eye.

We spent nearly every day together for four or five years, and I honestly feel that I would be an entirely different person if Kaydee and I had never been friends. We don't see each other often or keep up as well anymore, which I regret, but we're such old friends now that we can go months without talking and still be able to pick up right where we left off. Kaydee is unlike anyone else I have known. She and I are so different, but our lives have been woven together for over fifteen years now.

With all that said, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KAYDEE.

These are the only pictures of her that I can get to at work, but I think they're pretty representative.