Meet my besties.
We are the Ya-Yas. Forget the book. We are much better. We are Jesus-loving, Berry-College grads. We are wives and moms (12 kids among us); we are teachers, entrepreneurs, gardeners, cooks, theologians, musicians, and we have beautiful hair and smiles. (If we do say so ourselves.)
The ya-yas "start" in 1990. I befriend Melissa (Post) Kim in the spring of my senior year in high school. We both venture to a scholarship competition at Berry College, where I am dying to attend! God acts in my behalf and I get the scholarship money AND the new friend.
Fast forward a few short months...I meet Kristi (Cliatt) Hill during the first week of my freshman year at Berry College. As life is often not what you or I expect, she ends up being a friend for life, even as I near 50. (Shhh!! Don't tell ANYONE my age. My middle schoolers truly think that I am in my 30's. And I for one am NOT going to correct them.)
A couple of years later, I decide that I want April (Michael) Piper in my life, because Melissa and Kristi know and adore her. So I kind of "friend-stalk" her and announce that we are going to be friends. To her credit, this does not freak her out. I take this as a sign that she is just my kind of girl.
Somehow we become a foursome.
Now, I need to be honest with you and you need to promise not to be angry about this....I feel sorry for you that you don't get to be besties with my besties. These ladies are hands down the bestest e-vah. I remember that, after meeting them, my dad tells me that most people do not find even ONE such amazing friend in their lifetime, but that I have found three.
Trips, phone calls (remember those?), emails, texts, Marco Polos, quarterly-ish gatherings, year after year. I want these women in my life for life. I want them singing over me as I go from this life to the next some day.
We do not have to tell the "back-story" to any story. We know the back-story. We lived it with each other, after all. We do first jobs, engagement rings, wedding plans, pregnancies, potty-training, elementary years, the teens, and now we have our first batch of petite ya-yas applying to college.
Ya-yas, you know I do not always text back, and I currently am 14 Marco Polos behind, but you are my sisters and my family of choice. Praise God for you, women. Thank you for knowing me so well and still liking me.
And it is time to plan our next trip!