Two Are Better Than One

"I do not pretend to understand the nature of friendship between men, Dr. Marshland, but surely in its better points it resembles that between women. "

~Mary Smith, Cranford

"So I hear you're going on vacation this spring!" my friend Jenny said to me the other day.

  

I can never hold back the grin that comes to my face when this topic comes up.  "Yep, I'm off to State-That-Is-Far-Away-From-Here again. For two whole weeks!  Which is great, because by then it'll have been more than seven months since I saw Melody and I'll be in need of another Dose of Best Friend."

"That's going to be so fun," she said.  "So you're staying with her family?  And your mom said you're going to the Pacific coast, right?"

"Yeah, her family's being unbelievably sweet and letting me tag along on their vacation," said I, grinning even wider and probably resembling the Cheshire Cat.  "You have no idea how much I've been looking forward to this.  I seriously can't wait."

"I guess it's kind of like having cousins out there," she said, considering.  "I mean, like extended family that you'd go and visit.  You guys must be pretty close."

You could say that.  :D  In fact, you could say a lot of things about Melody and me-- the phrase that her mom used once, "the two of you are like sisters, except a little bit better" is one of the best of the lot.  For the past three and a half years our relationship's strengthened more and more, and I don't hesitate to refer to my best friend as my twin sister anymore.  We don't have the same biological parents or the same birthday, but she's part of my family now and I'm part of hers and the two of us are separated only by a very large number of stupid, lengthy miles.

But now? Now I am, to borrow a Melody-ism (I do that a lot) absolutely Full of Squee.  Because now we're in the home stretch again, that delightful period of time directly preceding an Actual Real-Life Visit, and I'm so happy I could SCREAM.

On May 19th, 2015, I shall take a very long plane ride and then sit around in an airport for three hours (yay layovers) and then take a not-so-long plane ride, and around 2 PM I'll be with my favorite person in the whole world (for whom I can thank this very blog, for introducing us in the first place) for two. whole. weeks.  And two days.  I'm not coming home until the FIFTH of JUNE.

Like I said, so excited I could SCREAM.

We have a lot of plans, of course.  Plans that involve drinking lots of tea (as always) and doing some cake decorating (I'll teach her) and going bowling (she'll teach me) and having a yard sale and playing games and going to libraries (she works at one, which is so cool :D) and watching lots of movies (we're currently planning on Death Comes to Pemberley, National Treasure 2, Newsies, Northanger Abbey... hmm, we like movies that start with N, apparently).  Oh, and making a blanket fort and hiding from people, because we're mature young adults.

Aaaaaand we're also going to the Pacific coast.  That is, her family's going on vacation and they're graciously letting me come too.  The two of us have taken day trips together before (and one overnight at my grandmother's house one time) but this will be our first real road trip, and to say we're excited would not only be an understatement, it would be redundant because I've already used that word too many times in this post.

Let's just say I'm elated and very much looking forward to it. 

(photo credit to Melody)

But in the midst of all our fun activities (and hiking and camping-- well, cabin-ing, which is my kind of camping) we'd like to make something fun to put on our blogs (that's how we met in the first place, after all) and that's where you folks come in.

We're planning to make a podcast together, or at least a voice version of a vlog.  (A v-vlog? Nope, too stupid.) With Internet privacy and all that, we decided not to make a video blog together, but we thought it would be fun to put together something like a podcast, perhaps accompanied by a slideshow of pictures or other Visual Aids.  In all modesty (of course), we are rather hilarious when together, and thought the rest of the world should be able to listen to at least one of our conversations and enjoy our hilariousness.  As one does.

So we'd like to answer any questions you might have, and here are some handy-dandy helpful guidelines for that sort of thing.

~Submit anything that you might be curious about, whether about one of us in particular or about the two of us together.  However, if you have a question specifically for Melody, submit it here in the comments of this post.  If you have a question specifically for me, hop over to Melody's blog and leave it in the comments on her post on this same topic.  We won't publish any of the questions just yet (but will let you know when we receive them) so that they'll be fresh when we read them to each other as we make the podcast.  Make sense?
~Ask whatever you like, but we do reserve the right to not answer anything we deem too personal.  ;)
~Jazz it up! Be creative! Feel free to ask the ordinary things like "what's your favorite color?" and "are you for or against flowers in church?" but we encourage you to ask even more interesting things like "which of you would be more likely to run away to New York and pursue the stage?" and "what's the dumbest thing the two of you ever did together?."  (Fair warning-- she might not let me answer that one. Not that I can think of a specific example right off the top of my head, but I'm sure with a little pondering...)
~Make sure your questions are submitted before May 19th! :)
~We shall do our best to answer all the questions in the podcast and get it recorded and published in a timely fashion. Howeverrrrr, there is a slight possibility that the podcast might not get completed during our visit, in which case we shall definitely answer all your questions in a joint blog post and will apologize profusely for not having had enough time to do what we promised.  Because, ya know, life gets busy sometimes. (But we really do want to do this.  It'll be fun.)

 

Okay, back to the regularly scheduled Sentimental Sap programming... in all seriousness, I am so thrilled to be able to go and see Melody again.  Over the last three and a half years (I'm still a bit mind-boggled that it's been that long!) we've really become like sisters, but even closer than that, and she is truly my other half.  We've been through ups and downs and sadness and joy together now, and had our share of spats (although we've never yet had any actually horrendous fights, just "foofalations" as we call them) and more than our share of communication (ha, if you could see the length of the emails we write to each other... and knew how much time we spend on the phone... heh, heh.  It's a wonder we get anything else done.).  

What my friend said about extended family is true, though.  She's become a real part of my family, and not only do I not know what I would do without her, I don't even like to think about the possibility of having to do without her.  She's just the best, you guys. :D

In recent months I've become closer with other members of her family too, and I think I can say truthfully that yes, I am traveling out to see my extended family.  My un-biological family, yes, but extended family nonetheless.  Because Melody's family is an extension of her (so to speak) and she herself is an extension of me, and... you get my drift.  I like her. And her peeps. :D  

So!  There you have it.  This exceedingly ramble-y and hyper post now comes to a close, and you are left with the knowledge that Amy and Melody are going to see each other again, a fact which makes the world a better place, duh.  (Because we're self-centered and like to think that way.)

And now I will stop sentimental-ing at you.  (Um, that's totally a verb. Because I said it was.)

“So closely interwoven have been our lives, our purposes, and experiences that, separated, we have a feeling of incompleteness—united, such strength of self-association that no ordinary obstacles, differences, or dangers ever appear to us insurmountable.” 

–Elizabeth Cady Stanton