I just got home from a most fabulous girls' night with my favorite girls in the whole world: my sisters! We went to see The Proposal and then did a little shopping at the mall. I lovvved. The Proposal. It was so funny and even though I didn't think Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds had super-good chemistry, it's actually like one of my new favorite movies now. I also love my new purchases! We saw one little sign for a sale at 5.7.9. and we walked in to check it out, and all of a sudden, it was like an explosion of sales! So of course I had to buy two necklaces, a dress, and two shirts. Actually, we all spent an admirable amount in our excitement.
I would just like to take this moment to blog about Kelly. She was reading my blog the other day and noted, a little bit distressed, that she wasn't mentioned at all in my blog about things that make me happy. So I told her I would write a blog all for her :)
I don't think it's any secret that Kelly and I are really close. In fact, she is my best friend in the whole world. I think we are very complementary together! For example, I love driving. Kelly hates driving. So whenever we go anywhere together, it's pretty much a given that I will be the driver.
But besides just driving, our personalities mesh really well together. We genuinely enjoy one another's company, so we always have fun when we're together. We have so many inside jokes and since we've known each other our whole lives, we have so many stories and little things we can laugh about. I always think it's so much fun to go on double dates with Kelly because that way I know I will have fun, no matter what.
Kelly is the nicest older sister a girl could ask for. Or a boy, for that matter, in my brothers' case. Sometimes, I kinddd of feel like I am the older sister, just because Kelly is so easy-going and she's willing to let me make decisions on things like, where we should live next year, how we should spend the weekend, things like that. I mean she'll totally plan things when she sees something she really wants to do, but for the most part she will just happily go along with whatever I want. So sometimes it feels like I'm older. But at the end of the day, it is obvious to me that Kelly is the oldest.
All throughout my life, Kelly has been a great example for me to follow. I watched her go to kindergarten first, then go to middle school, go to girl's camp, go to dances, start high school, graduate high school, and then move out and go to a college 2,000 miles away. We're only 16 months apart, so I've been close behind her all along, but this situation has always suited me. I love knowing that whatever I'm about to do, Kelly has already done it. I have been watching her for nearly 19 years, and having someone one step ahead of me at all times has made a huge difference. Just knowing what is about to happen, from the point of view of the one person who knows me best of anyone else in the whole world, is something I am immensely grateful for.
I remember one year when we were at Girl's Camp together and for one of the activities with the young women in our ward, we passed around this rock, and then everyone said what they liked about the person holding the rock. When I was holding the rock, Kelly said something like this: "Well I love Heather because I think she's really nice, she's like the nicest sister, and I like talking to her.....and that's all I'm going to say because I don't want to start crying." Which I thought was a joke at the time. But it actually wasn't, because then when I started saying what I loved about Kelly, I started crying. We had always been best friends, but I guess actually trying to put into words how much I appreciated her made me realize how much I really did.
I can remember only a handful of times that Kelly and I have fought in my life. Looking back, one of them was actually really humorous. We were little, probably like 10 and 11, and it was bedtime. "Bedtime" meaning "bonding time!" We used to talk for literally hours when we should have been sleeping, about absolutely everything. We got in trouble countless times for talking too long and laughing too loudly hours after we had been put in bed. For some reason, tonight, we got in some little argument, and one of us....probably me.....got mad at the other and poured water on them and then stormed back across the room and into their own bed. Of course this escalated and got a little out of hand. What started out as a little sprinkling of water turned into chunks of ice being thrown on beds, then whole glasses of water, and finally I found myself marching determinedly into our room with a huge pitcher of water, past the bathroom where I could hear Kelly filling up her newest container with water from the faucet in there, and dumped the whole pitcher of water on her bed. Feeling some sort of sick satisfaction at myself for this horrendously bratty act, I stood by my bed, wringing water out of my night shirt and waiting to defend my own bed against Kelly, the obvious villain. Before Kelly could extact her revenge on me, Mom intervened. I heard the water in the bathroom snap off in a distinctly un-Kelly like fashion. I can remember how my heart jumped to my throat as I crashed down on my bed and scrambled to get under my covers. I frantically squeezed my eyes shut just as I heard Kelly come skittering into the room and dive into her own bed. I heard a small gasp of surprise and the squish of her soaking-wet matress, and then I heard my mom say, in her meanest, hoarsest voice, "It is bedtime. I am trying to sleep. If I hear another word out of either of you, if I hear a trickle of water for the rest of the night, I'm going to come in, and I'm gonna make you take a cold shower. Go to sleep." Then she left. When we finally worked up the courage to talk again, it was in our quietest voices possible, and I was standing next to Kelly, helping her flip her matress over so she could sleep on a dry bed. I think we probably ended up going to sleep that night pretty quickly after Mom's terrifying threat, but I have no doubt that the next night we were back to our old tricks again. Although it was a few months before we had water in the bedroom again.
I have always been able to talk to Kelly about absolutely everything. At BYU this year, I remember her calling me one night at like 11 so we could figure out what time we would have lunch together the next day, or something like that, and we ended up talking on the phone for about 2 hours. We see each other every day at college, but somehow we still had so much to say to each other.
Another time, we met up for lunch and both of us had so much to talk about. We had about 15 minutes before Kelly had to go to her class. In that time we had to eat and discuss everything that had happened over the weekend and everything that was coming up. It was a very difficult task we had ahead of us, but we were determined to rise to the challenge! So for 15 minutes, we talked back and forth as fast as we possibly could. We had made up a list of things we needed to discuss, and we would yell out one of the items on our list, babble about it for about 2 minutes, and then yell out the next item. While one person was talking, the other person was frantically eating and trying to process everything the other person was saying. It was a little draining, admittedly, but we talked about everything we needed to and Kelly was on time to her class.
One of my favorite games to play with Kelly is the "What if I smiled like this?" game. Origin: unknown. It's very simple: one person just says, "What if I smiled like this?" and then twists their face into the most grotesque, ridiculous smile they can muster. Then the other person tries to match it. The smiles evolve, and the game would not be complete without head rolls and shoulder shrugs in all the appropriate places. It isn't a competition. No one is the winner or the loser. Showing one's teeth is optional.
I am fiercely protective of Kelly, and she of me. One time at the beginning of my freshman year at BYU, I went to a sports event and met up with some friends I hadn't seen in awhile. The company and the game turned out to be devastatingly less than I had expected them to be, and I left in the middle of it, fuming. Kelly had been planning to meet up with me there with some of her friends, and we ran into each other just outside the stadium. I guess I was just feeling stressed by the newness and disappointment of everything, and when I saw Kelly and started to tell her what had happened, I almost started crying, I was so upset. Kelly listened to my pitiful little tale, gauged my level of distress, and asked me if I would go back in the game with her, promising that she would take care of everything. I told her I didn't want to go and that I would just see her later. She made sure I got to my ride and then walked resolutely into the stadium where she found my friends and told them exactly what she thought of their behavior.
I think one of the things that makes me more mad than anything else is when I find out that someone has been talking about Kelly, or being mean to her. Furthermore, when people mistreat her, specifically boys, I will fondly nurture a personal vendetta against that person. I will think of the stories Kelly told me about things they said, or did, and I will spend time considering what I could say to them. It seriously makes me so mad. I think I spend more time thinking about how mad I feel at the people who are mean to Kelly than I spend thinking about the people who are mean to me. When people are mean to me, I typically will just want to talk about it and then get it out of my system that way. When people are mean to Kelly, I mull over the situation and work up this indignation until I am more upset about the whole thing than she is. I wonder if, maybe, this is because Kelly doesn't really get mad, so I feel like I need to compensate for her apathy with however much annoyance I think the situation warrants.
When I see people who aren't really friends with their sisters, I honestly feel sorry for them. I used to wish that I had an older brother, one who could be protective of me and have hot friends and tell me what guys were thinking when I got confused. But ohmygosh! I adore Kelly and I wouldn't trade her for anyyything!
We have way too much fun.
We laugh way too hard.
We have way too many good memories.
We share way too many clothes.
and I love her way too much.
Olive juice <3>
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