My best friend.

I met Natalie, oh god, like 20 years ago in Sunrise, Florida. I used to be horribly shy. To the point where I remember my mom going up to a bunch of kids to tell them I was new and they should be friends with me. If that wasn't embarrasing enough, I don't think I actually became friends with those kids. But somehow I met Natalie and her ever-growing family. There was Oliver, Ryan and Keith. They became those annoying brothers you love to hate. Walking in on me in the bathroom, or being our dolls when we wanted to play dress-up. Ryan was closest to our age so he became our pet. And Keith was perfect for his strollers and other toys. I remember riding in that stroller many, many times.

Natalie, Ryan and I would play the weirdest games sometimes. Like, who has the knife? What's this game you ask? Oh, just a little game where we would chase eachother around with a real, sharp knife. Yeah....

Then there was our obsession with Dirty Dancing and really, anything having to do with dancing or singing. We did the typical childhood dream thing and thought we could make a band. I think I still have a cassette tape of all of us trying to sing "Bohemian Raphsody". In our minds we were better than Queen.

God, and the hours we spent in the pool attempting to perfect the lift done in Dirty Dancing.

We had other friends join our little group along the way, but they never stuck. I went to church for the first time with their family and had spent many christmas's with them. Whenever we went to Disney World, Natalie came with. We went to the Dade County Youth Fair, got lost from my parents (at the age of 10 at a very dangerous area) and somehow played it cool until my dad found us hours later. Even when we moved to Pennsylvania for a year, Natalie came to visit. And when we moved back, it was like I never left.

We also splurged on best friend necklaces, to which I think I still have.

We stayed friends up until high school. We never had a falling out, but I think we just outgrew eachother. There was never any jealously for not being friends anymore. It just naturally died a slow death, and I think that was ok for both of us. I remember we even had a class together in high school and we were friendly, made jokes and what not. But we just had different friends. Different lives. We were just different.

Every now and then I hear stories about her. I saw her Mom once about 2 years ago and talked casually, even though I'm pretty sure she didn't recognize me for the first 5 minutes. I also heard that Natalie had a kid. My mom ran into them at the grocery store.

And then a week ago she found me on myspace and wrote me an email. It was so weird to get a message from her. From my past. I barely recognized her. And now she has 2 kids, and is divorced. And she has family here in Seattle.

The internet, man. It brings old best friends together. Even if it's just for a few emails.