Let me tell ya 'bout my best friend...

For those of you who don't know I'm engaged... well, I'm engaged. I have five absolutely beautiful ladies standing up for me, and I'd like to dedicate a blog to each of them to show just how much they mean to me. And, I'm going to start with one of my two Maid of Honors.

I don't like to think of only having one best friend. I have a couple very close friends. These are the people that it doesn't matter if I talk to them once a year or once an hour, our relationship will never change. These few people have proven to me that no matter what I do or where they are, if something happens, I can count on them. Now, I don't want to say I have a best of the best, but I really do. I don't love her any more than any of my other "best friends", but I do come to her about nearly everything. I always have my family there for me, who I know I can talk to about anything (I'm very close with my family)... but, when something happens at 4 am, and I just need to vent, I text her. When something amazing happens that I am overly excited about, I call her. If something completely mundane happens, but I still feel like telling someone anyway, I tell her. No matter what, she is the one I call.

So, I just wanted to share with you all why this girl, Jenna, is so special to me. She is two years younger than me, and we met by being in dance together. We knew each other well enough before the trip to New York with my studio the summer before my senior year of high school, but that trip is when it really all started. We had so much fun together. A little while after we got back, our moms (who had also bonded on the trip) went to lunch together, and while they sat at the restaurant and chatted and shared pictures, we decided to walk around downtown. We shared with each other what had been going on in our lives, and she asked me for advice. I gave it to her, though looking back it was HORRIBLE advice, and I was a terribly negative influence on her back then! Nothing too dangerous, just not smart. It's on that day, in the Ben Franklin, I found my best friend. Anyway, as the years went a long, we grew closer and closer. I went off to college in DC, but that didn't stop us. My first and second summers coming home from freshman and sophomore year in DC, we now affectionately call "The Summers of Fun" because we literally had SO much fun. We were inseparable. After my sophomore year, I moved back home to Iowa to go to Iowa State. Let's just say I was taking the "college life-style" a little too seriously and didn't want to spend over $35k a year at a private college to do so. Looking back, it was the best thing for me, truly. The best part about moving back was getting to teach dance at my home studio again. I had taught in the summers while I was gone, but still, I missed it so much. This also meant Jenna and I got to see each other ALL THE TIME! It helped that that year was also her freshman year of college. I started dating Sean that first summer I came back, and I remember her coming to the airport to pick-up Sean one time because I wanted her "approval". Luckily, he passed! In January of 2008, Jenna decided to transfer to ISU, and, of course, live with me and my friend Mandi from Texas (who you'll hear about more in her blog as she is one of my bridesmaids) in my little campus town-home. We had some of the very best times together there (with Mandi, too, before she moved back to Texas). During the summer of 2008, she moved back home and Sean came and stayed with me in Ames. We had a blast, and I still saw Jenna fairly often, but not too much as we both were busy doing our own thing that summer. When we both came back to live together that fall, things started to get shaky. I was frustrated with her, she was frustrated with me. I won't go into too many details here, but it ended badly. I am not a confrontational person, at all. I mean, it's to the point of a fault, where I don't really stand up for myself... But I had had enough of her, (and I'm sure she had had enough of me), and I confronted her. And not in a nice way. It was a huge blow-out, and she ended up moving back home (though I should note she was considering doing this anyway before the blow-out). It would have been fine for us to just go our separate ways, but that fall she also started teaching back at our home studio, so we had to work together. And see each other. A lot. We had to try to act nice to each other. I know, for a fact, we drove Miss Kimi absolutely crazy, along with everyone else in the studio. We were not happy with each other, and EVERYONE knew it. Finally, Kimi had enough and told us both we need to pull ourselves together, whether we liked each other or not, we could NOT act the way we were around the studio. And, while I can't pin-point the exact moment it happened, it did. And by recital of 2009, we had worked through it and were fine. And from that point on, things have been just wonderful.

Jenna is one of the few people in the world that I actually stood up to, face to face (not by e-mail, or phone, or text, or Facebook), and maybe that's why I feel so close to her, but she is like the sister I never had. We balance each other out. She's confrontational and doesn't take crap from anyone, and I let people walk all over me, so she helps me out. And while the age gap of two years (really only one and a half) may have made a difference at one point, she has matured so much, and continues to all the time. She makes me proud all the time. She works at Victoria's Secret, goes to school, and teaches dance - and still has time to go out! (Well, sometimes...!) And she's just not doing all three of these things, she's excelling in them. In the short time she's been at VS, she's moved from sales associate, to bra specialist, to manager! And despite being so busy all the time, she still takes time out to be there for her boyfriend, her friends, and her family. Jenna also has a long-term boyfriend, and I always joke that her and her boyfriend are just me and Sean, two years younger, and even at the same stage in their relationship pretty much that Sean and I were two years ago. Miss Kimi now affectionately calls us Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum since we are together at nearly every dance thing (since we both still teach there) and sit and chat and giggle all the time. I can tell her gross things, sad things, happy things, personal things... Literally anything. When my grandmother passed away in April of 2010, I was devastated. I was extremely close to my grandmother, and she knew that. Since my grandma lived in the same town as her (well, close enough), she knew my grandma really well, too. When I found out, I was on campus. I didn't call Sean, I didn't call my brother, I called Jenna. First thing. I found out later she actually knew before me because she was at dance with Miss Kimi, and my parents had already let Kimi know. But Jenna didn't let me know that, she just listened and was there. She came to the visitation and held my hand. And at the funeral, as we were leaving in processional down the aisle, I looked up and there sitting in the very middle of the balcony, all by herself smiling at me, was Jenna. When I graduated from college (finally!), she had to work that afternoon and evening, and she still drove all the way to Aplington that night to hang out at my parents' house with me to show me her support. When I got engaged, I called her first. Not even my parents knew, and I called her first. She's been there for me through birthdays and all sorts celebration and devastation and I am, seriously, eternally grateful to her.

So, Miss Jenna, thank you. Thank you for being there for me no matter what, even though I'm the older one and should be the one holding your hand in these situations. Thank you for helping me stand up for myself, for listening to me, for making me laugh, for telling me (and, on occasion, not telling me) when I'm being silly and getting upset over nothing, for helping me become a better dance teacher, and for letting me be one of your good friends. I love you, so much, and I truly do consider you my sister. I am so proud of the young lady you have become.  : ) I am honored to call you my Maid of Honor. And well...

Thank you for being a friend... Travel down the road and back again... Your heart is true, you're a pal and a confidant... And if you threw a party... Invited everyone you knew... You would see the biggest gift would be from me and the card attached would say... Thank you for being a friend.

I love ya, Blanche. Thank you.

Love,
Rose