I've wanted to be your friend (or wanted you to want to be my friend) since the day we filed into a line, with checks in hand, to pay the deposit for our AMI Elementary training. Your height was exaggerated by the tiny furniture of the Casa classroom and your novelty exaggerated by the British accent that you simultaneously attempt to downplay and peacock.
But maybe what I wanted more than friendship in that moment was a job.
I was in between homes and gigs at that point, having just packed up the Baton Rouge apartment into a truck and sending it off. I fit whatever I would need for that first summer in Atlanta (plot twist - it was actually Duluth) into the white Prius and drove there. Six weeks later I would join my then-partner in Carrboro and hope that any of the schools I had been emailing would reply with an offer. So when I overheard you telling folks that you had ties to Carrboro and had already landed a spot at a school nearby, my ears really perked up.
And whether you wanted to be friends with me or not, you helped me get a terribly-paid job at that school. You also introduced me to Justin, which forced me to restart the "convince this person to be friends with me" process and is another letter for another time.
That moment in line set in motion what has become a nearly 10 year quest to make you laugh, marvel in your cleverness, be in awe of your thoughtfulness.
To listen awkwardly on while I can't tell the difference between your joking or actually chastising Justin. To learn about a weird new board game or card game that seemed only to function as an opportunity for people to tell you their secrets. To battle for the adoration of PPL. To trade music on the road trips we would take back and forth from Durham to Duluth. To watch on as our families grew and changed. To support each other, in small but meaningful ways, during seasons of unimaginable pain. To swap Paleo recipes during our paleo phases. To swap reptile tips during our reptile phases. To swap watercolors during charties (chart-painting parties, for the AMI Elementary uninitiated).
But mostly what we've done since then is shared hours, upon hours, upon hours of conversation about Maria Montessori, about our classrooms, about human development, about the implementation of this profound approach to learning. Trying to memorize for exams, trying to troubleshoot for individual children's needs. Trying to stay sane and grounded in conflict with parents, administrators, or colleagues with whom we thought had a shared vision and goal.
It has been my absolute joy and privilege to collaborate and commiserate with you since we kicked this whole thing off stateside in 2014. I will truly miss the option to drive 7 hrs north and pick up wherever we left off in person but look forward to living, and perhaps documenting, the next decade of our friendship and the changes that your new (old) home in England will bring.
To be invited to contribute to a reading & writing project with you is your best going away gift to me. Such validation. I appreciate that our friendship has been a support & salve for imposter syndrome, though a published record will give the world a chance to confirm my deepest fear.
To finally take you up on this offer is, I hope, the best going away gift I can give to you.
-C