I first met Kait my second year at our local junior college. I was a few months away from being married, didn’t have a lot of friends, and was really focused on being the good kid. I was quiet, only making jokes in the awkward moments or during the ruckus. I remember there being new faces on that first day in choir especially in the alto section where I sat. We were rearranged and I was sat next to a girl named Kait. There was a specific moment, and I don’t remember the joke or what was said, that I realized this girl gets me. A few weeks later we were passing around a roll sheet or something and I glanced at her last name. Grogan? How the crap do you even pronounce that? And thinking very seriously about how we could exchange numbers and become best friends. SPOILER ALERT: we exchanged numbers and are now bffs.

From the very first day we met we just clicked. If you’ve ever met me you know my humor is sarcastic and weird, so basically if you’ve met me you’ve met Kait. We are the same. It was such a relief and actually a shock to find someone so much like me. I was blindsided by our friendship because I wasn’t looking.

Our friendship grew like an awkward teenage boy into something neither of us probably expected. Kait has been my confidant, my encourager, and someone who still gets me even when I don’t think anyone does. She constantly surprises me by how much she gets me. It’s pretty cool.

She is gentle and caring and crazy about dogs. Beware if you’re walking your dog within 500 feet of her. She will find you and she will pet it. She’s generous and hard-working and has a serious work ethic. She once made an A on a project and was so upset about it she explained to our teacher why she deserved an A+. She got it.

Kait grew up in Ohio with her sister and parents then moved to Louisiana. Her teenage years were spent here in east Texas and for that I could not be happier. She still talks about snow like it’s a real thing, though.

We’re often together and where one of us is the other will be, as the rest of our friends have figured out. We text all day every day about all the girl crazy, embarrassing daily things and deep fears that we realize in the middle of Ulta. I can’t imagine how I deserve a friend like her.

Kait loves music. Like, loves music. So much so that her high school choir teacher inspired her to major in music and teach! The very same teacher she will get to student teach with this fall. She’s so happy. Kait’s a teacher. She teaches me and has taught me over late night text messages when I didn’t understand the homework. She’s smart, you guys. Real smart.

So like a really smart and good blogger I came up with some questions after I’d already started this series but just in time for this week’s GTKY. 🙂 Here are Kait’s answers to the greatest list of questions ever created:

If our names were a hashtag, what would it be?
#kaitodylynlisegrich #isthatwhatyoumeant?

What do you remember about when we first met?
I’m assuming the first day we met was my first day of college at KC but I don’t really remember the first day. I just remember sitting next to you at some point in the semester and being like “she gets me.”

When is your birthday?
October 4

How do you relax when you’re stressed?
I like to turn my mind off and play an instrument. I’ll either go sit at the piano and just play random songs, or I’ll sit and try to play the guitar. I say try because I suck at it.

What makes a place home for you?
The place doesn’t make the home, the people do.

What’s your biggest passion?
My biggest passion is music. I would say teaching, but I don’t think that’s the case. I wouldn’t be as happy teaching something other than music. Oh, and also chocolate.

What’s your favorite time of day?
I would say I’m a morning person. I don’t typically sleep in too late. I like to wake up early so I can be lazy more hours in the day:)

Pet peeves?
Uggs and shorts. Walking on grass. When you drop your shoe and it turns over. YouTube ads.

 

Kait, when you move to Dallas in December come down every weekend and stay with me in my cool downtown apartment that I’ll magically be able to afford by then. Go be cool in Dallas and follow your dreams and teach and be an adult. Eat a lot of chocolate and get a dog but text me every second because you won’t be twenty minutes away anymore. (Okay, why are you moving there again?) I’m really going to miss you and I’m only just realizing that we will be hours away for real and it’s making me sad and nostalgic already so I love you. You’re my best friend and you know I hate being sappy but you’ve literally been there through it all so it can only go up from here. 🙂 Love ya Kaity. 😛

 

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!