A Summer with Bitchney

I’m going to take you back in time. To a summer of our lives that was riddled with anxiety, uncertainty, and more stress than either of us knew what to do with. With an unusual twist of fate, it turned out this was going to be one of the few times in our relationship that we were not on the same page. Both dealing with unbearable and overwhelming pressure but doing it in near polar opposite ways. This was our summer of the bar exam.

I was taking tennis lessons, vacationing in Oregon, my house was spotless and my bar study books speckled with sunscreen and wrinkled from pool water. I was keeping myself busy, trying to enjoy my last summer without a job, and doing anything in my power to keep the panic attacks at bay. My crying meltdowns from the sheer pressure of the looming exam came only ever other week or so. We could call this the denial approach. If you had asked Brittany at the time, I was actively trying to fail the bar exam -- clearly not taking it seriously enough.

She on the other hand had transformed into a living, breathing, crying, cookie monster. There was no sunshine, no laughter, no smiling, no happiness, all humans were stupid, and the only suitable form of sustenance was Publix brand cookies. She locked herself inside and decided that there was no room for joy as all the space had to be filled with studying, and worrying about studying, or hating people who were not studying. She had morphed into a person I had never met, she had become Bitchney.

I didn’t recognize her and for the first time in our relationship I really couldn’t fully relate to her. But none of that mattered. We still talked several times a week. I would tell her of my life - she told me of hers, and while I didn’t understand, and I felt like I missed the person I knew, I was just as committed to being there as always. Just there. Not to fix her. Not to convince her to do it my way -- and she never told me I was doing it wrong either. That was the most remarkable part - she remained as true a friend to me as ever despite how annoying I must have seemed to Bitchney. And I still relied on hearing her voice on the other end of the phone as that comfort I needed to maintain my fragile state of denial. (We only confessed our inner thoughts after we both survived.)

This experience proved something so important about our friendship. It endures, it grows and it remains flexible, and forgiving. I love that 90% of the time we are not only on the same page, but can read each other’s minds with a mere glance from across the room. But we are not one person. We are two. And sometimes, you just have to let a storm ride out without doing anything about it at all. Just keep showing up and keep loving. I haven’t seen Bitchney is some time, but if she ever visits again I will greet her with a smile and a hug and know her stay is temporary.