Can't forget...

I can't stop thinking of Tanya. I think of her every day many times through out the day. I feel weird about it because I hadn't seen her in like 4 or 5 years! She had soooooo many friends after me, and I've met soooo many other people after her and we went our seperate ways long ago.

I think of things about our friendship all the time now. Random things like birthday parties, sleepovers, notes in school. I get choked up about it, and again, it feels weird cause I didn't know her as an adult at all. But I figured I'd share my thoughts here, maybe it'll help.

She was my first "best friend" We met in 1st grade when we sat next to eachother. I forgot about this until my mom told me a while ago... but we talked so much in class that the teacher made us sit next to her desk in school.

I remember her trailor being damaged in a tornado, a neighbors shed went right through Tanya's bedroom!

I remember Tanya was really smart. I remember specifically one time when I went to Leeds to see her in her new home and it was summer time. She was reading the dictionary! she was in like 5th grade! I asked her why she was doing that... and she said she had to study if she wanted to go to college some day.

In like the 4th grade our music class put on a play. She was Chicken Little... I was a tree in the choir... no fair. I was always jealous that she was the main character and I was just a tree! Every time after that when our music teacher saw us, she would call Tanya "chickidee"

I think it was that same year that she was over at my house and we were outside playing in the snow. She wrote a 'T" for her name and an "A" for me and connected them with her finger in the snow. After that, our name symbol was on EVERYTHING. All the letters we wrote and chalk drawing we did all the way up to 8th grade when we lost touch. I posted a photoshop image of our name sign....

Tanya's birthday was March 30th, two days before mine. We always talked about celebrating our birthday together... but for the life of me, I can't remember if we ever did that.

One time when she lived in Leeds, we were in her basement and we danced and rollerbladed around to the "simpsons" yup... bart, lisa, homer, marge... they had a Tape you know! She loved the simsons... and she did an impression of bart really well!

Tanya loved gum... she always chewed gum... and she snapped her gum too. Like a valley girl... snap snap snap.. chomp chomp chomp... it was annoying. But cute cause if she giggled and did it... I would laugh.

We got our First Holy Communion together too. I remember when I was giving my wine in my cup and we're supposed to bring it to the priest an pour it into his cup... well, I drank it and I was sooooo embarrassed.

Tanya listened to Country and Christian music when I knew her. I think she grew out of that phase cause Janelle said she was all punked out at the wake.

She would dance silly and when she ran, she kept her hands in a fist and her arms tight to her side, and people made fun of her for it.

I know that even if she was still alive, I probably wouldn't have ever seen or talked to her again, so it isn't like I miss her cause I haven't been friends with her for a LONG time. I don't know why I feel so sad, but when I remember how she truely was one of my first really good friends, I feel horrible about what has happened to her.

Oh yeah, and I was talking to my aunt, and found out that my uncle was the one who had to pull her out of her car from the lake. He is on the Search and Rescue team. I guess he was pretty tore up about it too, said it was the hardest call he's ever had to do, because he has daughters and he couldn't imagine what he would do if that was one of them.

Anyway, I feel better now that I've taked about it... if you've read this far, thanks for listening.