...both a drug, and not a drug...

Everyone should have a group of friends with whom they can do absolutely anything, or be absolutely anybody. Everyone should have this intimate circle where everything is okay, and yet you still strive to make the most out of yourself to please these other selves that have somehow actually come into being.

I don't think any of the ACIDS read this blog, or they might be embarrassed by the depths of my feelings. I often say how much I love (and often miss) the ACIDS--my core group of friends from high school, who--despite them all marrying and now starting to have children--have remained some of my very best friends in adulthood. Just this last Christmas we inducted Sam's wife Ashley, which made us five. And I hardly ever feel like a third wheel. We're just family--and I have no idea how I will ever get a sixth element to mix into it, but that's neither here nor there.

Today was my 'brother' Michael's 22nd birthday--"Over the Hill" said the card I gave him with a laugh. That makes it about eight and a half years since our friendship began. Boy, just saying that makes me feel old.

These are my true sibs, my blood-brothers and sisters, though different genes flow in each of our veins. With these, I know I will always be able to come back, and find things the same. Different, and yet infinitely the same. Sam and Michael will still do the scary clown, and Whitnee and I will always roll our eyes. Ashley will always be there, sardonic and yet so lovable. And I fear that Sam and I will always quote movies (if not Pirates 3) at each other, and he will always, always inspire my creativity like nothing else in the world.

I value all of my friends dearly, but also very differently. There are things you can tell your best friend that you can't tell your brother, just like there are stories you shared with your brother that are never quite as funny to anybody else. The ACIDS are these sibs, who will always have my adolescence in their hearts when they look at me, just as I do theirs.