"The Time Has Come," the Walrus Said, "To Talk of Juleigh Things..."

I have a list of about seven things that I'm especially grateful for, and I save those seven things for the end, every year. I write about them in order such that the most important is saved for last, and they go in that order.

Everything before the last week is random, just whatever I'm feeling that day. But the topics during the week before Thanksgiving are the ones closest to my heart.

After today, I'll be talking about my siblings, my parents, my daughter, my husband, and my Savior.

So the person I'm talking about today is the person I love most in the entire world, outside of my closest family and my God.

And, to be honest, she has become as close to me as if she were my own, literal sister. But I had to put them in some kind of order for this last week, so blood got the edge. Although, on the other hand, the post about my siblings is talking about all four of them together, and this one gets her very own post.

Hopefully, this helps her realize how very important she is to me.

I'm talking, of course, about Juleigh.

Her name has come up a few times throughout this month, and that's because she does so many things that bless my life and make me feel grateful. But today the topic of my blog is purely her. I'm grateful for the awesome things she does, yes, but I'm especially grateful just to have her in my life.

As discussed yesterday, I've had many friends over the years. Not usually all at once, but because I moved so often, I collected quite a few in the long run. I've even had friends that I've felt especially close to. "Best friends," as it were.

Well, no offense to them, because they're wonderful and I love them, but Juleigh blows them all away.

And I think the main difference is this: Never before have I had a friend that I felt loved me as much as I loved them.

All the other best friends I had while I was growing up were relatively permanent fixtures in their communities, for one thing. They had other friends, many of whom they had known longer and were closer with than they were with me. That's one of the things about being a nomad, like me: Friendships are fleeting, and often shallower because of it. The people you leave behind usually have other friends, so they don't really miss you so much when you're gone.

For me, though, those friendships were the strongest in my life. And it always killed me a little when they fizzled out. But, for my part, I kind of let it happen. I knew, even then, that I was the one who was more invested, and that I wouldn't be too terribly missed when I was gone. So I detached and moved on.

Juleigh is different, though. I love her like a sister, and I know that she loves me just as much. It's totally new for me, at least when it comes to friendships. It's the same kind of thing I have with my siblings, or my husband - reciprocation. But it's the first time I've had reciprocation like this in a friend.

I think it helps that she and her husband moved here only a couple of weeks before us. Neither of us knew anyone else. We were both feeling nervous and (to be honest) kind of depressed to find ourselves in Abilene, TX. We were lonely, and we both needed a friend.

That being said, it still took us a few months before our friendship really took off. I think we're both kind of shy at first, afraid to put ourselves out there. I know I am, anyway. It's always harder when you're the new kid, too. It's easier to extend the hand of friendship when you're already settled and comfortable with the people around you. But putting yourself forward when you don't know anyone is scary. So it took us a while to get comfortable enough around one another to start letting our weird sides out.

When it came out, though, it came out in a huge way. We would have long conversations on Facebook, in the comments sections of various status updates - much to the chagrin of anyone else who may have commented on the post. We kind of blew up the internet. My mom actually stopped commenting on stuff and just started giving my posts a supportive "like," so she could avoid all the notifications Juleigh and I were causing because of our comments.

Eventually, we started using texting and messaging to have our conversations. And Facebook breathed a sigh of relief.

But not until after we had talked about all kinds of bizarre, humorous things, like whether or not elephants have boogers. And if they do, what happens if they get a head cold? Do elephants ever actually get head colds?

Obviously, we had each found a friend who was just as strange and awesome as ourselves. We bonded quickly after that.

Our husbands got along too, although not to the same extent. But they're good enough friends that they don't seem to mind all the hanging out Juleigh and I like to do. And the kids have fun playing together. So it all worked out great!

Juleigh makes me act like a 12-year-old. Usually a 12-year-old boy. But I do the same to her, so it's only fair. We found ourselves trying to fake burp in the car the other day. We were grown women, in our 30s, acting like goofy kids.

It's awesome.

We've done all sorts of crazy stuff together, too - usually dragging our families into participation.

We had a pie-eating contest.

We dressed up like Mario characters and went go-karting.

We had a superhero themed birthday party for Evie, just so we could dress up.

We played a lot of truth-or-dare Jenga.

We dressed up and took pictures as gifts for our husbands for Valentine's Day.

We went to the Trunk-or-Treat at our church as characters from the Big Bang Theory.

We decided to start a band called "Finxter Muffles."

We've gone on a road trip or two.

We started doing our Christmas Eve traditions together every year, including a nativity.

We had a Nerf war on Christmas Day.

We made finger mustaches (on multiple occasions).

We take our family pictures together (meaning at the same time, although occasionally we might slip into one another's pictures).

We even discovered that there's a curse on us. Every time we double-date to Outback Steakhouse, someone in our group ends up getting violently ill. It's not anything Outback did, it's just been sheer dumb luck. Or, as I mentioned before, a curse.

Life is so much better with Juleigh in it. :)

That's not to say that we are purely goofy, of course. There have been lots of times when I've been able to talk to Juleigh about serious things, too. And we've both had multiple opportunities to help each other over the past few years.

Juleigh helped me deal with my ants, just this past week.

I drove with her to the auto parts store and watched her car when she was afraid to turn it off because it might stop working.

She brought me food and stayed with Evie for a while so I could go home and shower and change when Evie was in the hospital with pneumonia.

I watched her kids overnight when Juleigh had a seizure and had to go to the emergency room.

She helped me raise some money to put toward an adoption or medical procedure to help solve our infertility problem.

I went with her to her grandmother's funeral so she wouldn't have to make the long drive alone.

We held a garage sale to raise money for a family who had lost their home to a fire.

We've gone to the temple together.

We took around little gifts to people from our church who seemed to need a little extra love.

We encourage each other to be healthy by going to the gym together.

It's not all about the fluff and fun, although that is certainly a huge part of our relationship. But it's so much deeper than that. We've already decided that we want our mansions in heaven to be next door to each other, so we can continue our friendship through eternity.

Juleigh is my best friend forever, in a very real, literal way. There's a reason why she is second only to my family and my Savior on my list of things I'm thankful for. My life has been indescribably better since she became a part of it.

Now that we are probably moving next summer, I've been very worried that this will be another friendship that fizzles out. It would truly break my heart if it did.

But as I said before, this friendship is different from any I've had before. Juleigh loves me just as much as I love her. So I can't imagine that either of us will let this friendship die out.

Keeping Juleigh in my life has become a priority for me. I want to plan my family's vacations to Utah in the summers so they coincide with when she'll be there. When we retire, I want to settle near where she and Bryce settle (we've talked about Idaho Falls and Logan, UT, respectively), so we can see them on a regular basis. I want to go on vacations together, with us and our husbands. And maybe the kids.

Sometimes.

Maybe. ;)

And I refuse to let the little communications end - the texts, the Facebook posts, the messaging, the phone calls. I want to talk to her about my life, and see what's going on in hers. I don't want that to stop.

We probably won't be able to be as close as we have been, since we'll be living hundreds of miles apart. But that's only temporary. Because eventually, we'll be next-door neighbors in heaven. And then we can pick up right where we left off.

A friendship like this isn't one that you allow to fade away. It's a friendship that can, and should, last forever.

I'm going to miss her like crazy when we move. But, in the same way that I try to talk to and visit with my parents and siblings on a regular basis, I'm going to try to see Juleigh. She's more than my friend now. She's my sister. She's part of who I am. And I'm refusing to let her go.

I love you, Juleigh. Thank you for being my very best friend.