Across the Universe

Veronica and I met ten years ago, through our mutual friend Nicole Dirlam, in 7th grade. We instantly connected, and even though we didn't make any efforts to hang out exclusively for another year or so, we were always very ecstatic when we had the chance to hang out at a friend's sleepover or outing.

Of course, we ended up becoming the best of friends, but we'd hardly had two years together when it was already time to say goodbye: I was moving 700 miles away, to Missouri, and there was no telling when or if I would be back.

But, as you all surely know, for Veronica no door ever closed unless she wanted it to, and I wasn't getting away that fast.

My mum happened to think it ever-so-convenient to move at the beginning of summer, so that Steve and I could have no friends for at least the first three or four months. (Yeah, thanks!) Luckily, me, Verny, and Lori had already arranged to talk on the computer every night. For a while we'd had an AOL chat going that we called "Smurfyville", in which we'd all correspond and occasionally invite a crush or boyfriend in to join the circus. It was, in a way, our cyber clubhouse where, even if we were grounded or had to stay at home because it was a school night, we could always hang out.

When I moved, we ended up switching our chat to Yahoo Messenger, so that we could utilize the webcam and voice options. Not that we talked; for the most part, we only used our microphones to make weird noises, and to illustrate when we laughed. The biggest fun, besides the rainbow font option (naturally), was the webcam games that we played. One was called Copy Cat, in which someone would make any sort of expression she wanted, pause the camera, and the other two would imitate her pose, upon which she'd proclaim a winner, who would then be the new "Face Maker" until another winner was proclaimed. My personal favorite, however, was our Funny Face game, where we would all contort our faces to the most obscure, maxed-out ugly expression possible, pause our cameras, and then laugh our arses off until we could unanimously declare who made the weirdest expression. At the end of the day, I think it's fair to say that we were all winners at that one. :P

I could continue the long-distance stories in detail, as they are what made up a large bulk of my memories with Vern, but then this post would never end. So I'll get to the point.

Throughout the course of our friendship, most of that time spent far apart, Veronica would never let the distance defeat our comradeship. When other friends started moving in other directions, physically and figuratively, near and far alike, Veronica was right there with me through thick and thin. I've moved around a lot, made a lot of big decisions, taken paths I didn't expect to and met challenges I'd never dreamed of having. And throughout it at, there she was. When I wasn't sure if I'd be able to make it to Bristol the summer after I graduated, she bought and mailed me bus tickets. When the opportunity arose, she came to visit me when I lived in St. Louis. Anytime I came to Bristol she'd find a way to come up from Knoxville to visit me, and when I wanted to see a concert in Asheville she drove all the way from UT to UVA in Charlottesville to pick me up, go to the concert, and take me back home. Who does that? Who goes well out of their way--across the universe and back--to make a positive impact on someone else? My best friend did. She was and will always be, truly, one of a kind.