About a year and a half ago, twitter introduced me to someone. A friend. And not just any friend. Not just another online contact. Not just another screen name or silly avatar. No, she is much more than that. So much more, in fact, I thought it was high time I told you about her.

Her name is Rose. I call her Rosie. She lets me. She doesn’t even complain when I call her Rosalita or Rosé. Which is good, because I am physically unable to call people by their real names. But I digress.

She does complain when I make her take selfies every time we’re out. But she usually indulges me…be it ever so begrudgingly.

Sometimes, to make her feel better, we hide our neck fat so we look good in said selfies.

See? How could you not adore her?

Rosie is the one who encourages me to step out of my comfort zone. From the very beginning, our goal was to conquer “One Terrifying Thing a Month”, and in the year or so that we’ve been friends, she’s given me the courage to do so many things I never would have done without her. From networking events at the racetrack, to painting a (terrible) Van Gogh in front of a whole group of people (whom I’ve only met because she introduced me to them). She’s also the reason I’m okay with the fact that my painting was so terrible. She pushes me to blog. Clearly I’m not doing so well with that, but she’s the one who makes me want to keep trying. She believes in my talents and abilities to the point where I start to believe in them, too. That in and of itself is the reason I am where I am today. I wouldn’t have had the confidence to take this job if she hadn’t spent the last year building me up.

She’s the friend I can tell anything without fear of judgment. She’s the one I can say nothing to, and she knows it’s probably because I have a whole lot of something to say, and I’m just afraid to say it. She’s the friend I can go to lunch with on a day that I’m feeling stabby and unsociable, and know that she’ll sit there feeling stabby and unsociable too, and we’ll still end up making each other laugh.

She and I had a conversation about silence recently, stemming from this post on her blog. We talked about how mutual, comfortable silence is so rare. Silence without awkwardness is difficult unless you’re extremely comfortable with a person. I realized at that moment that I have that kind of friendship with her, and it just came naturally. Someone commented a couple of weeks ago that they were surprised we had only known each other for a year, because our report suggested otherwise. To me, that sums our friendship up pretty well, because I love her like I’ve known her forever. She’s pretty doggone special to me, and I hope she knows that.

Love ya to bits, Rosie! Thanks for being…you. :0)