I first met Brittney during my second year at UT Tyler, the fall of 2012. She was in the band and friends with one of my very good friends, Randa. I had seen her and knew who she was for a while but we never had an opportunity to talk or hang out. But that changed during my second semester that year. Our schedules aligned and Brittney, Randa and my best friend Kait and I took our hour break on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and got bagels for breakfast. We all rode together and talked about goofy stuff, sang Christina Aguilera and owned the streets of Tyler. Brittney and I, even though we didn’t know each other, hit it off immediately. You know those people you meet and you just fall into step of an old friendship? That’s how meeting Brittney was. We had never spoken but it was easy to just talk to her and be myself around her. That’s not an easy thing to do for me. Brittney is just easy. Over the next five months we hung out, talked and learned about each other.

From the beginning I could tell that Brittney is a fierce friend. Over and over I saw her drop everything and drive hours to be with a friend that needed her. She’s loyal and protective and motherly. She takes care of her friends physically and emotionally. She is loving and gentle but mama-bear when she needs to be. Everyone who knows her loves her and lots of us consider her like a college mother to us. And she owns that role proudly.

Brittney plays the French horn and is a music major at UT Tyler. A few years ago she decided to major in education and even sold her horn, but by a providential sequence of events she found her way back to music and wants to teach elementary kids music. I’m selfishly glad because if she hadn’t returned to music we’d have never met. 🙂

Perhaps the best quality about Brittney for a single friend is her excellent wing-woman skills. Many a time she’s told me what to say or been cool for me when I’m not. She’s bold and brave and I admire those strong qualities in her because they so greatly contrast mine. Like during our dinner, for example, she left her number for our waiter because, “all he can do is say no.”

But underneath all that boldness and bravery and motherly instinct, there’s a softer side of Brittney. Her two cats, Jynx and Jypsy, are her real children. The cats make her a gentle giant, in a way. When I walked into her apartment they both greeted us with collars around their necks. Jypsy, the calico girl above, jumped up and climbed all over me in the chair while Jynx, a solid black boy, played it cool and slunk around the room. Brittney’s studio apartment is just as cute as she is. In the heart of the Azalea district she lives in a renovated garage studio apartment with open windows and a cozy bed. I wasn’t tired but when I walked in I just wanted to snuggle up in bed and sleep in front of the windows. That’s Brittney to me. She can make me feel comfortable in any situation and make me feel like home. And that’s a quality you’re born with.

I love you, Brittney, and I can’t wait to see where our friendship goes!

A couple of months ago standing in the shower, as you do, I had an idea. Course I hoped I remembered it by the time I got out to write it down because I have the memory of a newborn. But the general idea was this: I want to get to know my friends better and document our friendships where we are right now. I’m calling it Getting To Know You.

I’ve met some new people this year and developed older friendships as well but I realized I don’t know the things that make my friends who they are. I met all of them in college so the high school and awkward middle school years are vacant from my memory. And I realize spending a few hours with each friend is just a small drop into who they are but I’ll learn things I didn’t know. And that’s the whole point. Community.

More recently I read Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller and had a realization about just how selfish I am. Our nature as humans is self-centered and I’m only just realizing how bad it is. I don’t ask people how they’re doing, I wait for them to ask me. I don’t introduce myself, I wait for them to introduce themselves to me. It’s bad, y’all.
So I want to rid myself of that, and in an effort to be less selfish I want to invest in other people. I want to purposefully hang out with each of my friends and get to know them more, old and new. I’m excited to sit down and take pictures of each of them (oh yeah, I’m going to take pictures of them) and introduce them to you. It will be such a fun way to document our friendships this year.

I’ll be posting a new friend every Wednesday! I can’t wait for you to read it. 🙂 I lovely love love love these people. They’ve had such a cool impact on my life and they’ve helped me grow so much this year. They’ve encouraged me and put up with more than their fair share of crazy. (Thanks, guys.) I can’t wait to dig into these people that I love.

xx