My First Grown-Up Friend

I have a friend who is a total grown-up.  She is married and owns a home, and she hasn’t lived with her parents in years.  She is seriously like a grown-up.

Nurse Sarcasm was my first grown-up friend, at least the first who I didn’t watch turn into one.  There is something special about friends who you’ve known your whole life, but there is something equally as special about friends who meet because your paths so happen to collide at different times in your lives.

I met Nurse S in nursing school in San Diego, and shortly after the program started, we became friends.  She was so different than my friends, and from the moment we got to know each other I really looked up to her.  I don’t know whether it was because of our age difference, or because she has done so much with her life already, but I always saw her as more than just a friend – more like a mentor.  Someone I could ask advice of and look to for inspiration when I was stumbling unsure (which I am often doing - very life-clumsy).

She is also so. much. fun.  Like she made me get in trouble at school for the first time in my collegiate experience from laughing too much during class.  And she made studying fun because it wasn’t so much studying as it was reviewing with someone you adore.

The School That Won’t Be Named ran a program that was completely disorganized, inordinately difficult, and occupied by a lot of frustrating people (understand why I won’t be naming the school, now?).  Having a friend, that over time grew to be a best friend, while trekking through this program was so essential that I will be forever grateful to her.  Without Nurse Sarcasm, I don’t know if I would have made it through my LVN program with my self-esteem, sanity, and clean arrest record in tact.

Nurse S and I have been through much more than school together though – she was the first person I called when my house was broken in to, I helped her plan her wedding and she was smiling at mine, she listens as I vent about my classes, and I’m there when she can’t decide what to do.

(Me giving a Toast at Nurse Sarcasm's wedding in August)

(Nurse S and Me 6 months later at my wedding)

I am so glad I met Nurse Sarcasm.  And so glad I met her when I did (she would NOT have liked the high school me – and I’m pretty sure she was a cheerleader!).  She makes me feel more grown-up because she’s such a real one!  I also adore that she is always willing and eager to give me adult advice – like what home-buying entails, how to change your last name after you get married, how to file your taxes, and where to buy rainbow chip frosting.

(Nurse Sarcasm and I saying the Nightingale Pledge at our Pinning Ceremony)