My Optimal Friend
My best friend’s name is Storm (Yes, this is her birth name. No, her parents aren’t hippies or X-Men fans. lol). She is 22 years old. We’re both from a little shithole town called Fort Madison, Iowa. We formally met each other on a Yearbook/Student Council trip back when I was in 6th grade (she was in 7th), where we took a train to Chicago. On this trip, we bonded over music, I peer pressured her into drinking her first Red Bull, and we started our first inside joke when I told her I was “saving all of my dimes and nickels to go to my first Warped Tour” and she went to a museum gift shop and bought me a dime paperweight the size of my hand.
Even though we met this day and started talking at school every once in a while, we didn’t become best friends until the summer before my junior year of high school (she was about to be a senior). Both of us had just gotten out of long-term relationships, and we decided that we wanted to go do what every group of girls in the movies do when they get broken up with…we went dancing. We drove 30 mins to go to a traveling teen dance club. We had so much fun, we drove an hour and a half to go again the following weekend. We’ve been inseparable ever since.
Almost a decade later, we remain best friends. We have a very special relationship, in that we understand each other in a way that no one else in the world does. We listen to each other and express our feelings without ever worrying that the other will judge. To this day, I don’t think I’ve ever had a healthier relationship. Her family is my family, and vice versa. We always have fun together, whether that means traveling across the country, going to concerts together, or we are just sitting in our kitchen talking about life. Through all the years, despite all of the growth and changes we have experienced, our friendship has remained. She is my constant.
Storm is truly the most amazing person I have ever met in my life. She’s outgoing and fun. I used to be super shy, and I credit her fully for “bringing me out of my shell”. She is an incredibly talented graphic designer and entrepreneur with huge dreams. She has an intense work ethic. We always joke about how we’re not happy unless we’re stressed. She is positive, thoughtful, generous, and caring, but she doesn’t take shit from anyone. Not even me. haha. There is no one else willing to call me out on my bullshit the way she does, yet she still is the most uplifting person I know. She is my inspiration for all of my creative pursuits. She is the person that motivates me to do better in life. She holds me accountable. She is a progressive thinker and is always there to remind me that things don’t have to be as narrow as I sometimes make them out to be.
I am truly blessed to have someone like her in my life, because these kinds of relationships are so rare. Although we are not and never will be romantically involved, she is my soul mate. She is the person I want to get through life with. She is my Optimal Friend, better than best.
For Christmas this year, I commissioned Joey Fleming (@joey_ihow) to write and record a song about our friendship. To go with, I compiled a video with some footage from over the years.