It began with…

“Are you going to make a speech?” x3

Followed by…

“You’re going to get up there, right?”

I thought about it. I thought about the shape of my speech—how it would sound rolling out of my mouth, in THIS drawl—the ways in which the audience might react. I imagined myself standing with the microphone held low (my voice carries; I don’t really need one), stumbling over heartfelt but imperfect words I’d practiced (but not as often as I meant to) as I moved from story beat to story beat, hitting each anecdote—one right after another. I could hear the stifled chuckles and the occasional “awws” as I recounted a friendship. My Buddy would smile, because no matter how I faltered (and later replayed every painful detail in my mind, mocking my own delivery), he’d give me a “friendship” pep talk—tell me a story about me and his take on the whole debacle, promising he’d only seen a friend up there to assuage my fears. But I’d still know I’d been a complete and utter hopeless dork about to become an office meme.

And as I considered all of that—on that stage in my mind—I quirked one brow at the attendees, threw that mic over my shoulder, and declared “fuck this!” and calmly walked out, “gracefully” tripping along the way and making a little huffing sound. (My cool exits never quite qualify as “cool,” even when they’re in my own mind. Minds can be treacherously honest things at times.)

A month earlier, I’d had a similar “Fuck that!” mic drop reaction to the question of, “Can you help me put together a retirement party?” Only, I didn’t swear… out loud, but the answer was still a “no,” and it was pretty colorful and pretty emphatic, causing the requestor to beg a bit. “I need your help!” Pfft. I may be poor with words and walk like a complete prat-falling clown, but I make up for it with my resolve—especially when I don’t want to do a thing. (You should see me hold my breath and stomp. Chef’s kiss, y’all.)

I’m not going to really spell out the “why” of my no. However, I’ll share the bones of a speech not given at a party that I eventually relented and helped plan with a begrudging, “Fine! I’ll do it,” to avoid the event face-planting, which would have happened.

Hey, I may not always feel like being helpful, but nobody throws my buddy a shit party (or allows a shit party to be thrown)—even a stubborn, breath-holding princess.

The Speech that Wasn’t

Once upon a time, over a decade ago, in some random building miles away…

…there was a guy—full of bravado—who strode into a meeting. This retired First Sergeant, 1st Cav, First in Everything, Best in Show, best job he ever had (hooah), fastest Rolodex cut fight quip fast draw swaggered into my meeting. Well, it wasn’t mine, I suppose, but I was in there, and since I’m an only child, you all understand it was mine. He kicked back, was quiet (a feat I didn’t realize was a feat at the time), listened for a bit, took a moment to size up the room, took a breath, smiled, and then proceeded to ‘splain to everyone there how things were going to be moving forward in that “that’s cute, you’re wrong” way—which he’s copyrighted by now, I’m sure. This pedigree-dropping, TAC-dropping, House Bill this-and-that-dropping dude (so many of the droppings) with his distinct “boy, you ain’t from around these parts” clipped accent—chock full of cocky hubris that he let just swing around out there for everyone to witness (no shame!).

If you couldn’t answer, “Who the hell is this guy?” when he started, you definitely could when he finished. And after years of knowing him, I can tell you that love him or hate him, you definitely have a strong opinion about him. If you don’t, you haven’t really met him yet.

I’m talking about that guy over there. Hi, Buddy!

Anyway, sometime during those early chest-pounding weeks (Buddy, don’t you dare chuff at that—you own that), I watched and listened, and then there was a moment when I thought, “Oh crap, that guy may be part of my tribe.”

All of you know that story, and if you don’t, stop me by the punch bowl later.

(Hey, I said this is the speech I could have given—almost everyone in the room knew that story. I mean, if you’re interested, it’s funny, but you need to pick up your snow shoes (not a real thing) and do whatever you do while wearing the aforementioned, entirely made-up shoes (walk? shuffle? foot tennis?), suffer through enjoy a few jazz flute solos, dog memes, kiss missiles, orange tabby belly floof, narwhals, chubby unicorns, sunshine, lollipops, AND rainbows, fuel oil (WHY?), skip to every show tune throughout the 100 Acre Woods, earn free goat milk soap, eat some crayons (it’s a security thing—the blue ones are the best—no, they’re not a special branch of the military—well, they are-ish but they aren’t that one; however, they are special), snap to a bit of Sinatra, extol the brilliance of Richard O’Brien, belt out some Halestorm, sit through some tales of Jo-nan the Barbarian (the less impressive, hardly worth mentioning, son of Conan), and you’ll arrive at the precise moment where I stood in a hallway and nearly busted out with, “Did we just become best friends?”)

It’s impossible to do proper justice to the stories that account for a friendship, and I’ll spare everyone—especially HR—some of the better ones. I’m looking at you, HR guy. But I’ll share two pivotal ones that solidified this friendship for me:

The week after my husband died, I returned to work. There’s only so many hours one can stare at the same wall and hope it will provide answers before you think, “Huh… this is really sad.” At that point, only a few coworkers knew Jay died, leaving everyone else to guess I’d been on some fabulous vacation. I spent those first couple of days navigating through a lot of “How was your vacation?” questions, only to watch people reel back, mumble apologies, and scamper off.

During that week, I popped into John’s office to discuss a project he sponsored. I think I stood across from him and stared like I’d been summoned to the principal’s office—wholly intolerant of pleasantries and filing all life things under “unimportant bullshittery.” He paused, took a look at me, and asked a question. I don’t remember what it was, but I know my response was a flat, “Jay died,” with a silent, “and I don’t know why I have to be in here one more minute talking about servers when nothing matters.” I waited for the mumbled apology and the hasty retreat, because at that point it’s what everyone had done, and as punishment to the world, I began wielding that statement like a weapon. John looked at me and immediately stood up, came around his desk, and gave me a hug. “I’m sorry, Beth.”

It was the first (and only) time someone at work did that after the event.

(FYI: some co-workers—the ones I was closest to—did know and they’d attended Jay’s memorial. I don’t want to imply that Jay’s death was completely ignored, but the rest of my co-workers were left in the dark.)

I’m going to make a huge jump in the friendship timeline to Covid—so, this is the part where you imagine another montage of clips that gets us there— one that starts with John making a cafeteria lady giggle, hosting his own office karaoke for one, picking up decorative Christmas mice from a pipe store, MC-ing office Family Feud, hosting dramatic Rollie review readings, handing over packed lunches with juicies and one little bite-sized Snickers, giving a guided Google tour of Troy, NY, preparing the perfect coffee by whipping sugar into cream, regaling people about that time when… and placing his glasses on his forehead while looking at me and saying, “shoo,” while I pointed at things like the fat lip I’d given myself.

Then we slow it back down, and show where we moved to our new place of employment. Ten weeks after that move, Covid hit.

I loved that so much. I mean, who didn’t? And what I loved was the expectation that I live without real human contact indefinitely. A time when everyone I knew lived with another human whether they liked them or not, and they had little empathy for those of us who didn’t. So good. I’ll resist this opportunity to deep dive into why exile is an effective (and actually harsh) punishment—we can save that for another day—but know that four years after Jay’s death, being told to sit by myself in a house without human contact was awful. Enter John, who adopted me into his bubble (as did Jenn), and the two of them kept me sane just by being willing to be within feet of me. Later, when Snowpocalypse hit Texas, John is the one who picked me up and let me stay in his guest room for days on end. Heck, when I arrived, I got to sit in the king of all chairs, wrap myself in a warm blanket, and fancy cocoa was served. Dude, don’t even try to pretend it’s not fancy.

And while that’s not a particularly great anecdote, it speaks to who he is as a person and a friend.

It’s these shared moments, as well as so many more – with montages of laughter, singing, carpool breakfast sammies and coffee, courtyard tea runs, park walks, doggo, small people, “ooo, turtles” or “ooo, USAA has an ATM” distractions, that this person is a constant in my life.

Also, I should throw in here, that I also owe him my career. Just trust me on that one.

So, you see… he’s more than my co-worker.

He’s my family. 🙂 My tribe.

So when someone states, “I know you’ll be sad when your friend is gone,” I have to shrug. He’s not gone for me – maybe for you guys – but that there is my friend, and he’s just going to go do something else for a bit, and I’m going to cheer him (egg him) on.

All because of a random day in a hallway over a decade ago when “…we just [became] best friends.”

Here’s to you, Buddy!

Cue mic drop, and reverb from the sound system.