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97 Comments

  1. marymforbes
    September 17, 2012 @ 10:15 am

    Great memories to hold in your heart forever. 🙂

    Reply

  2. vintagekaren
    September 17, 2012 @ 10:21 am

    What a wonderful tribute to your friend Lara and the enduring gift of friendship. Loved reading about your youthful adventures and zest for life!!

    Reply

    • Victoria Elizabeth Barnes
      September 17, 2012 @ 2:59 pm

      If I could go back to one point in my life, that would be it. I would be tempted to revisit my wedding, and some other special events… but Texas would win.

      Reply

  3. jestidwell
    September 17, 2012 @ 10:32 am

    I love this!! Bestfriends are worth all the hassle to make and the drama to keep 😉

    Reply

    • Victoria Elizabeth Barnes
      September 17, 2012 @ 2:59 pm

      Lara is like my twin from an alternate universe. We can communicate without even speaking… You probably know the feeling!!

      Reply

  4. our heritage home
    September 17, 2012 @ 11:01 am

    A friendship that stands the test of time, great post.

    Reply

  5. Stacey
    September 17, 2012 @ 11:56 am

    HOW SWEET! What a wonderful birthday tribute to a friend who obviously means the world to you.
    The constant laughter is something I remember most about my best friend. EVERYTHING was funny… funny to the point of physical pain. Ahhh, good times!

    It’s so great that you still have all these pictures. The true friendship just shines through. How lucky you both are to have each other and to still be friends to this day. Fun post, Victoria.

    Reply

    • Victoria Elizabeth Barnes
      September 17, 2012 @ 4:26 pm

      That kind of laughter seems like a hallmark of close friendships. Paul makes me laugh a lot, but I rarely come close to needing medical assistance…

      By the way? To me, Texas is a magical place where no one has to go to work or deal with anything unpleasant, or do house projects, or have real life intrude on your blissful existence… Lucky you, to live in such a place!!

      Reply

  6. curt
    September 17, 2012 @ 11:58 am

    Dang, Victoria Elizabeth! This is quite the post. It really sums up the essence of what a true friendship is. This is more than a tribute to one treasured friend – it’s a celebration of what friendships can and should be. Thanks for this on a rainy Monday morning.

    Reply

    • Victoria Elizabeth Barnes
      September 17, 2012 @ 4:30 pm

      Thank you so much, Curt. It was the sort of experience that kind of defies description… although clearly, I had a lot to say about it!! Thanks for reading!

      Reply

  7. nataliedeyoung
    September 17, 2012 @ 1:47 pm

    This. Is. AMAZING. 🙂 What young adulthood SHOULD be like!
    And I’m diggin’ the tie dye and other nineties paraphernalia. Good times.

    Reply

  8. crazyinsuburbia
    September 17, 2012 @ 2:11 pm

    Yes, but did you ever steal yard décor? I kid. Amazing blog!

    Reply

    • Victoria Elizabeth Barnes
      September 17, 2012 @ 4:32 pm

      Laughing… no I don’t think we ever stole yard décor. But we did fill a hugely-deserving ex-boyfriend’s truck bed with trash. Not garbage, just random, odd stuff. Pretty sure that will gain me admission to your league…

      Reply

  9. Roberta
    September 17, 2012 @ 2:42 pm

    I haven’t commented before, but I had to tell you how much I loved thid. The shower curtain scrabook is priceless.

    Reply

    • Victoria Elizabeth Barnes
      September 17, 2012 @ 4:48 pm

      I totally agree… priceless.
      Thanks for commenting! Back before I was a blogger, I had NO idea how appreciated comments were, and how I should be leaving them all over the place!!

      Reply

  10. emmawolf
    September 17, 2012 @ 3:15 pm

    I love that shower curtain! (And this post generally!)

    Reply

    • Victoria Elizabeth Barnes
      September 17, 2012 @ 4:49 pm

      I wish I’d thought to make a decoder-key to the curtain—some of it is a mystery to me now… I’m like, WHAT were we talking about?

      Reply

  11. Alex @ northofseven
    September 17, 2012 @ 3:57 pm

    This is the cutest thing ever! I wish I had a lifelong friendship as such. I’ve come close but a lot has gotten in the way. I do have several similar friends but I don’t think we’d survive a roadtrip together. That shower curtain FYI – is awesome!!! Who got to keep it? 🙂

    Reply

    • Victoria Elizabeth Barnes
      September 17, 2012 @ 4:50 pm

      I got the shower curtain. She got the microwave. I’m sneaky like that.

      The road trip part was fantastic… But I won’t lie and say there weren’t times when we were finally living together, that we weren’t a little tempted to punch each other.

      Reply

  12. Seat12
    September 17, 2012 @ 4:26 pm

    Really enjoyed reading this…I have to say that I was relieved to get to the end of your post and find that everything was okay with both of you…no tragedies or anything like that (sometimes these “remembering back” posts can go that route) hopefully the only tragedy was having to get rid of that awesome cool shower curtain!

    I do wonder if things have changed with friendship now that there is the internet and email and there’s no more waiting for the mail to be delivered. I wonder if there is a quality of friendship that is being missed with communications being so instantaneous these days. I wonder if we weren’t much more “connected” back then even without electronic gadgets?

    Thanks for a great post that left me smiling!

    Reply

    • Victoria Elizabeth Barnes
      September 18, 2012 @ 8:03 am

      I never thought of the anticipation-part of waiting for a letter as a good thing. It was agony way back when… but maybe I should value it.

      I’ve gotten back in touch with some people through Facebook, and enjoyed exchanging some really LONG emails. And they’ve really made me miss that kind of long-form communication. But also made me think about how no one really has the time for that kind of intensive writing…

      P.S.- I clearly lack your ability to whittle anything down to only the essentials.

      Reply

  13. RedCandy
    September 17, 2012 @ 6:12 pm

    Wowee! How lucky you both are to have each other. I have a friend like that. We became really close when we were 16 although we knew each other before then. We are still inseparable and I’ve been planning retirement since I was 18 because I want to spend every day with him…..my husband.
    I loved reading this…..thanks Victoria.

    Reply

    • Victoria Elizabeth Barnes
      September 18, 2012 @ 7:55 am

      Your comment had it’s own little narrative arc and plot twist… SO sweet! You’re lucky to have found him so young. It’s wonderful to have someone who’s known you so long. And to have someone who shares all your important memories. It’s like having a scrapbook in the form of another person!

      Reply

  14. Karen B.
    September 18, 2012 @ 1:14 am

    Victoria,
    This is such a great tale of friendship and fun and someone that gets you and loves you for who you are. The funny thing is that I just got home from spending 5 glorious days with my best friend and her sister. We became friends at Disneyland during our first jobs after high school and she was in my wedding and I was in her’s. We giggled until we nearly wet ourselves this week and picked up where we left off during our last face to face visit. She lives in Washington now and I live in California…I miss her so but thanks to email we talk almost daily. Thank you for putting into words such a sweet reminder of “true lifelong friendship” and it’s value.
    Happy Birthday to your dear friend.
    Karen
    P.S. You’re really tall! 🙂

    Reply

    • Victoria Elizabeth Barnes
      September 18, 2012 @ 8:21 am

      Karen,
      That literally made me laugh out loud!!
      Lara and I spend so little time in each other’s physical presence, that when we get together it takes a while to adjust our mental image to reality. For some reason, in my head, Lara is the exact same size as me… and whenever I see her in person, I’m like—geez, why are you so short!! And she’s like, I definitely don’t remember you being a giant…

      Five days of laughing sounds like heaven!! Your trip must have been wonderful! Isn’t it funny how you just pick up where you left off? There are years between times Lara and I see each other, and it never matters.

      Reply

  15. hughmannbeing
    September 18, 2012 @ 8:44 am

    Thank you for reminding me hold onto the memories that I have shared with my friends more, and to create more memories for us to hold onto in the future. Stunning post! Thanks for the sharing!

    Reply

    • Victoria Elizabeth Barnes
      September 18, 2012 @ 10:07 am

      These really are some of my most precious memories! While I was putting this post together, I was so aware of how much things have changed technology-wise! If we were to take this trip today, we’d have endless digital photos and plenty of video… makes me sad I don’t have that kind of detailed record!

      Reply

  16. the home tome
    September 18, 2012 @ 10:42 am

    Awww! I am crying – this is so beautiful – makes me miss my best friend – what a special thing it is to find a girlfriend who “gets” you: your silliness and your fears etc and get to finally spend a bunch of time with her. This is great! My favorite lines: “our vital and unnecessary crap.” And: “Are we in Arkansas?” Ha!! 🙂

    Reply

    • Victoria Elizabeth Barnes
      September 18, 2012 @ 3:28 pm

      Sniff… seriously. Thanks for that. It is absolutely the best, right? To be with another person who is not at all concerned with what state you’re in!

      We did take some genuinely unnecessary and puzzling things… when Lara got to my house and we were packing up my half of the car, I pulled a giant shovel out of her trunk… The kind you would use to dig a big hole. Incase of what, I have no idea. I was like, hey maybe we don’t need this? And she was like, no we’d better take it.

      Reply

      • Lara Croft
        June 28, 2013 @ 12:05 pm

        Actually, the shovel was a must-have for anyone living in NH winters, to shovel your car out of snowbanks. The fact that Texas doesn’t have snowstorms was not something I was thinking about when I said we should take that.

        Reply

  17. Tressie
    September 18, 2012 @ 12:17 pm

    Mrs. Barnes, You don’t know me and I don’t know you, though after reading this I feel I know you and Laura quite well! The details you remembered about your time of 22 years is better than any video, or photo collage you could ever arrange.The video in your mind couldn’t have been portrayed any better!! I was moved around too often to really keep a best friend for very long but all my best friends know we all had a special friendship. Thank you for bringing these memories back to me! God has blessed you with a wonderful friend and a true blogging ability!!

    Reply

    • Victoria Elizabeth Barnes
      September 18, 2012 @ 3:21 pm

      Thank you so much for your comment. The feeling of conveying an experience to strangers, and having it be meaningful to them is oddly gratifying. I appreciate you taking the time to write such lovely things!

      Like you, I moved schools a few times. I hated it, and found it overwhelming and intimidating… So Lara’s friendship was that much more important. Finally getting to spend so much time with her felt like we were making up for what we’d missed out on.

      Reply

  18. Karen Foraker
    September 18, 2012 @ 12:36 pm

    brought tears to my eyes

    Reply

  19. Gary
    September 18, 2012 @ 12:42 pm

    What a tribute! What a friendship! Y’all should take a 2nd trip..using all the modern technology and blog from the road.

    Reply

    • Victoria Elizabeth Barnes
      September 18, 2012 @ 3:30 pm

      Best. Idea. Ever. Imagine what I could do with an iPhone. Although blogging about it would probably amount to this: hahahahahahahaha.
      Succinct, but not eloquent.

      Reply

  20. Daniel Morrow
    September 18, 2012 @ 2:00 pm

    A great tale of friendship. Your story made me remember a trip I took from Corpus to Houston with an old friend in a very small car with no air conditioning, a very limited cassette player, and having to stop every thirty miles to keep the vehicle from overheating. We had a great time. Quite often the happiest memories come from the simplest things, thanks for sharing!

    Reply

    • Victoria Elizabeth Barnes
      September 18, 2012 @ 3:31 pm

      Maybe not everyone thinks a tiny, overheating car, with no ac in Texas sounds like the most fun ever… But I am one of the few who can appreciate the awesomeness of such a trip.

      Reply

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