let me tell you about one of my favorite people… who i somehow have the least amount of photos with.
and yes, this is 100% a brag-about-my-best-friend post, because it’s her big day, and she deserves to know that the love we pour into her today will never surpass the amount she pours into the rest of us year-round.
Nat is one of those people where you leave hanging out and immediately think:
“oh fck… did i ask her a single question?”
…because she spent the last two hours asking you twenty.
She’s one of the most genuinely inquisitive people I know. I don’t think I’ve ever actually played King’s Cup with her, but if she became Question Master, you might as well just forfeit immediately.
When Lena and Lucy announced they were having two weddings (lesbians, am I right?!), I told Nat. Naturally, she started asking questions that hadn’t even crossed my mind.
“Wait… are they reading different vows?”
“Same dresses?”
“Different first looks?”
Meanwhile I was just over here like.. “YAY GAY! x 2.”
Curiosity isn’t her only friendship superpower. She’s also one of the most consistent friends I’ve ever had.
She’ll text me on Thinking-of-You Tuesday, Whazzup Wednesday (admittedly she’s still workshopping that alliteration each week), Thinking-of-You-Again Thursday, Friendship Feedback Friday, Sup Again Saturday+Sunday, and “u manic?” Monday.
When most people accidentally forget to check in, Nat somehow compensates for the rest of the population.
One week, I dropped a Friendship Friday prompt into my Marty’s Angels group chat: What’s something that’s a want, not a need, for you right now?
My answer: a giant rolly whiteboard.
I happened to be having a pretty shitty day that same day. Completely unannounced, Nat rolled up to my office with a mini whiteboard in hand and sat with me in the car while I vented.
I’ve been trying to prove my responsible use of the mini whiteboard ever since in hopes of eventually receiving friendship approval for the giant one.
It was never really about the whiteboard, though; it was another example of Nat hearing the little things people say and quietly turning them into, “I was thinking about you.” She has this extraordinary way of making people feel like the little things they say matter, because to her, they do.
There’s also the way she talks. What takes me a four-minute voice memo somehow takes her forty seconds. Every word feels intentional, and I aspire to reach her level of voice memo eloquence one day.
I’ve joked that she should start sending me invoices for the amount of life coaching she provides for free. She’s not a therapist by trade, but she might as well be.
A couple weeks ago, Nat became a mom.
I think when your friends become parents, there’s this stereotype that you brace yourself a little. You wonder if things are going to change. If you’ll see each other less. If you’ll slowly drift. Somehow, with Nat, I’m convinced it’ll have the opposite effect.
Getting to watch your best friend become a mom – especially a queer mom – hits a little different, as you watch through the lens of the kind of parenting you wish more of us got to experience growing up.
The funny thing is, I don’t think I’ve spent the last couple weeks wondering what kind of mom Nat will be. That part already feels obvious.
I’m just excited another human gets to know her.
To be endlessly questioned by her.
To be thought of by her.
To be shown up for by her.
To be shaped by her.
To be loved by her.
… just like I have.
Happy birthday, Nat BRAT. 💚
Hawaiian Princess Pieces 