Of Forts and Grown-ups

"Goodnight, Autumn", she sleepily smiled as she nestled into her over-sized comforter.

"Goodnight, Mandy", I returned, staring at the draped sheet six inches from my nose. My ribs still rang from the unavoidable bouts of giggling that had taken over throughout the night, leaving me both breathless and satisfied. I assumed that from any outer vantage point two mature, collegiate, twenty-somethings sleeping underneath a dirty, striped bed -sheet-and-text-book- fort looked at least a tad pathetic. For us, however, this fort was almost vital. We needed one night of juvenile bliss. We craved one night of extraordinary giggling in order to cope with the cold hard fact that these two mature, collegiate, twenty-somethings were two mature, collegiate, twenty-somethings.

We, so similar in our struggles yet so different in our approaches, were sleeping underneath our own painful attempt to recreate the innocence of a simple sleep-over. We didn't say what we knew to be true. We refused to admit that each moment passing could never be recaptured because one of us was soon to be on her own.

"I guess this is it", I muttered to myself. She had always been there, whether it was sitting on the edge of my bed at 3 am or curled next to me watching a particularly terrifying episode of Lost. There were few people in my life I had felt not only the ability, but the compulsion to open myself to. She was indeed one of those elite few.

I knew that she was an "elite" for many people. She held within herself a passive openness and active compassion that allowed the broken to feel hopeful enough to speak. The sense was overwhelming enough that I often pictured her holding orphans on one of those "of course this wasn't posed" missions poster.

I missed her. Laying on a dirty mattress an arms length away from her, I missed her. I sighed, realizing just how rough our separation might be. Part of me wanted to beg her to stay, to plead with her not to leave me behind. I wanted her unconventionally unconditional love to stay centralized on the hill. Mandy love on tap, if you will. Yet, I knew I had done nothing to deserve it from its beginning, and nothing could bring it to its end, even if hemispheres divided us.

The world needed what I had received, and in such larger doses. "Lord, wherever she ends up, please never change her. Even when you change everything about her, never change her.", I turned on my side as sunlight began to stream through the window above us. Maybe I would see her on one of those posters someday. And heck, I bet it wouldn't even be posed.