My Mumbling Thoughts

Helen knows that every day when I get home from work, I have to take up at least fifteen minutes of her life while I update her on all of the mundane facts of my day; the lady on the train that fell asleep on me, or another Office Story that I have from sitting at my desk for eight hours. She turns off the TV, sits up a little straighter and gives me her full, undivided attention while I ramble on about nothingness.

That's just me, and she knows it.

She is my best friend (one of a small handful I have and keep close in my heart). We have had a couple of rough patches, but nothing that we haven't worked through and came out on the other side brighter and closer. It's something that I believe all best friends have to go through, because no relationship is perfect all the time. We get annoyed with each other, fall into a funk, a mood and can get easily irritated because the other one is just blinking at the other. Why does she do that!? God!

But for the majority of the time, we are best friends. I consider her a sister.

Helen is beautiful. When I say that, I mean it in the purest way. She is beautiful both on the outside and the inside, and to me, that is extremely hard to find in a person. She's ridiculously smart and there are so many qualities that she has I wish I could have in myself; one of them being that she's financially independent to the max. Helen keeps her finances very private, never discussing them with anyone, and I wonder if I should take a page out of her book. She has never had to borrow money from anyone, and keeps tight lips about the number that flashes on the cash machine.

Aside from the fact that she knows how to manage her money, though, she is damn near perfect. She's what I like to call "classic beauty". She has blond hair and the bluest sparkling eyes that she dresses up with glittering eyeshadow and a slick layer of mascara. She chooses all of her clothes carefully and everything in her wardrobe fits her like a glove. She has her own personal style, and knows how to work it. She is a true London Girl, being born and raised here and knows the city inside and out.

On top of all that, she's ridiculously sweet and will do anything to help you within reason. You can't not like her. It's virtually impossible, and she's so personable. I see her when she chats to people and she just has a way about her that makes you want to be her best friend. She's my little princess and I can't wait to see what the future holds for her; she deserves everything in the world.

My darling little Helen, though, does have her own fair share of woes. It pains me to see her when she's unhappy (damn you boys that can't see a good thing when she's right in front of you!) and there's nothing more I would like to do than just to make all of her problems disappear. I know how she is, how she can be and how she beats herself up over things that she shouldn't be worrying about. I wish I could make her see all of the wonderful things that I see in her, that everyone sees in her, but that she occasionally can't see from time to time.

She's moving to Paris on the 9th of September. Since she studies French and Classics, she's required to do one of her uni years abroad in the country whose language she is learning, therefore taking four years of uni rather than the traditional three. She'll be in another graduating class than all of us. She'll be gone for our third and final years. She'll be missing out on the London uni scene. But she'll be gaining so much more in return. She is embarking on a new journey, getting a clean slate and is starting over in a brand new country. (Sound familiar?) As much as I'm going to miss my wee Care Bear being so close, I'm equally excited for her and can't wait to hear about all of the French Things she's going to be doing. I wonder if their university life will be the same as our university life? Probably. It's just all in French.

And it's not like I'm never going to see her again. I've already told her that our first reading week that we have, I'm hopping on the first Euro Star train and coming to visit her so we can be Parisian together and terrorize the locals. They'll hate us, but we're going to love it. I want to get the full experience of eating lots of bread, smoking inside cafes and getting looked down upon by all of the french folks that despise us Americans. It'll be great.

I haven't thought about her leaving that much. I'm not sure if she has really thought about it in depth. I know she had a day or so after she returned from Poland, but we don't talk about when she's not going to be here. I don't think I'd be able to handle it. What will I do without her? Who am I going to have long, hench chats about boys with? Whose shoulder am I going to cry on? Whose room will I go into and lay on the bed and have chats with while she's getting ready for work or a night out? Who am I going to eat peanut butter and nutella with at 11:30 at night? What am I going to do? What is she going to do?

She has been with me through so much over the past two years. I remember when we were practically inseparable from each other, and living virtually parallel lives. She was the one who I always cried out for whenever I was drunk and being extremely emotional. She was the one who listened to me well late into the evening and took care of me when I couldn't take care of myself. She was always the one I would think to call first or want to talk to first whenever something BIG would happen to me throughout my days. She was my first best friend here in London, and for that, I will always be grateful that I know her.

If I know my Helen, I know she's going to be fine, more than fine even. She's so strong (a lot stronger than she thinks), and she will flourish with all of those frenchies like a fish taking to water. And when I come to visit her, we will have changed a little bit more, but not that much. She will always be the small English girl that I wanted to become best friends with when I first moved over here. And we will always be amazed by how similar, yet extremely different we are at the same time. I will miss spending time sitting quietly with her in the morning whilst we eat breakfast, and have it not be awkward. There aren't that many people in the world that I can do that with, and with Helen, I just know. I find myself saying quite a few times to her, "don't act like I don't know you and how you are."

Ah, yes. And we will always be lesbians together. One day, it's going to happen. I know it's already written in the stars.