LYLAS

I'm headed to Jacksonville, Florida tomorrow morning to visit my best friend and to celebrate our 31st birthdays. The fact that A) I'm getting on a plane and that B) my flight leaves at 6:55 on a Saturday morning should indicate just how much I love her.

Nisha and I have been friends since the 8th grade, when we each suddenly found ourselves mysteriously befriended by the same band of cheerleader types and shortly thereafter (in the grand scheme of things) decided that wasn't our scene.

When you've been friends with the same chick since you were 13, it's hard to sit around drinking very expensive gin out of even more expensive glasses while holding her children in your lap and not experience just a teensy bit of cognitive dissonance. In my mind we're still 19, sitting around a bonfire drinking Boone's Farm out of paper cups and talking about boys.

There's really nothing quite like a friend who's known you and loved you since your big hair days, a friend who sometimes knows you better than you know yourself, a friend who simply pours you a glass of wine and curls up next to you on the couch when you show up on her doorstep unannounced in tears carrying a bag large enough to suggest you might be staying for a while, a friend who will ditch her husband and kids to pick you up from the airport at 8:30 on a Saturday morning, a friend who reminds you every damn year that you are three days older than she is.

And so, in honor of our birthday celebration, I offer a photographic history of our friendship. Fortunately, I have no record of the early years (1988-1989), although I bet Nisha does. Additionally, we had a bit of a falling out in 1994 -- I don't remember why, I think maybe she hated my boyfriend -- so I don't have a picture from that year. Lastly, for some reason, I couldn't find a photo from 1996. Other than that, here you go.

Happy Birthday to us.

Oh! I forgot to mention that there are exactly zero good pictures of us in existence. We don't know why.