Happy birthday to my Ev!

Now this will be a slightly different post today, because you see last Tuesday - the 22nd January 2013, was Georgia Addison Everett's 16th birthday. Now you may not know this girl, or you may do, but either way I've happened to become rather fond on this girl over the last year and a half, and if, by the end of this blog, I can make you feel like you could have even a fraction of the love I have for this girl, then  I would consider my work done and my life made!

Although I probably should be working right now, like most of us these days, I could procrastinate for England, so putting my time into making a birthday blog post for my best friend, instead of doing sod all in the time I should be revising, seemed like a pretty good option!

So, lets go back to the very, very beginning - all the way back to about 2003, at Brennan School of dance in Bromham, Bedfordshire... 

It's not the most interesting start to be honest - we were in the same ballet class, that was all. She'll probably hate me for saying this, and I'm sorry Ev, but I don't actually specifically remember her! You see, I was a bit of a socially awkward child and expected people to hate me if I ever talked to them, so the only person I remember was the mean one in the group who took the mic out of that! (by the way, that wasn't Georgia - I think she was just as shy as me!).

I think I left ballet when I was about 8 - before she did, then fast forward six or seven years and we come to the very P.E. lesson where I find out she has a much better memory than I do! I've been separated from my normal friends as I've been put in a different group to them for football, it's cold, and I'm in a very down-to-earth, non-hyper mood. Suddenly I hear this squeaky 'OhmygodOhmygodOhmygod! I knew I knew you from somewhere! You went to Brennan school of dance?!' followed by a high pitched giggle and probably a squeak, from behind me. For some reason, I don't join in with this random crazy girl's hysteria, hmm, I wonder why! After a simple and instinctive, but also rather confused reply of just 'I did?', I thought myself lucky when random crazy girl's crazy friend was just as hysterical at random crazy girl, so they quickly retreated back to their magical land of squeaky hysteria. Little did I know that random crazy girl would remember that encounter  - so well that next P.E. lesson she brought along a photo try to jog my memory a bit!

'I just found the picture and was like 'oh I saw that girl the other day' so I just thought I'd bring it in, its a bit weird, but yeah, i swear that's you, me and Aydie before one of our exam thingies. Its nothing, I know it's a bit weird, I just thought I'd show you coz I thought it was cute, and, yeah... Hehe'. Woah. this girl talks fast! I secretly found this super-speedy blabbering and silly muttering really cute and endearing, but it was in year 9, and being in your first year of a new school and trying to fit in with 'the right people' does things to you - in my case it made me a little pretentious, and clouded my brain with the thought that anyone a little bit over-excited, or out of the ordinary, was just down right weird and you should stay away from them. But I was lieing to myself - because really, deep down, I was already one of them, and always had been!

So whilst also feeling a bit freaked out to say the least, I have a look at this fuzzy, re-printed photograph being placed in front of me, and see three happy little girls with plastered cheesy smiles on their faces and each one of them with their hair up in the same perfectly tight, swept back bun (except the one on the left, who still had a bun, but with little frizzy bits of baby hair flying out from every angle of her head. Oh crap. That's me.).

But, although this may be hard to believe, it was a whole year before random crazy girl and I began to build any sort of major friendship! We had both survived through the treacherous year that is year 9 without hearing more than the odd story or fact about each other, like an argument amongst many others, or the usual 'ohh, they're going out now?', but no more or less than you would've heard about anyone else in the year.

Beginning of winter 2011, I wanted to start to get to know new people and start a fresh after the chaotic antics of year 9, so I started to get to know a girl, called Abi Saunders (who is also, still to this day, one of my best friends - by the way) and one lunch time I decided to join Abi at the pavilion at school with all her crew - which is where they usually all hung out, and surprise surprise, random crazy girl was there! I already knew her name was Georgia, and my walls of pretentiousness were well and truly on their way down, so I was suddenly able to accept, and even embrace the little bit of 'craziness', as I though of it before, that came with the package of having Georgia as a friend, but which I now knew wasn't crazy exactly, but was just being who you are and having fun. Georgia had just started going out with this guy at the time - and Abi was also getting together with someone, so by the time I was good enough friends with them both to be hanging out with them pretty much everyday, they both had boyfriends and I was the 'single pringle' of the bunch, as Georgia began to call it. It's all changed now, of course, as these things do!

And so it begins...

I remember the time running up to this last fireworks night when she couldn't make it this year, and she referred to it as 'our anniversary' - which as well as being really cute, was actually quite true! It was just me and her on fireworks night 2011, and she slept round mine afterwards, and when we came back, instead of being normal people and watching telly or something, we munched on Doritos - out of the big bag - and ate satsumas and peeled the skin off in one go and put it back together so it looked like a full orange again, then took pictures of it. Because we're just that normal! And I think I can safely say, from then on, we were stuck with each other for a very long while. Neither of us were going anywhere from that point, whether we liked it or not ;)

Now you may be a bit confused as to why I've referred to her as 'Ev' in the title of this post, and the answer is a very short, very simple story which takes place, once again, in a P.E. lesson, this time not on the football field, but inside - at the climbing wall, and just over a year ago. By this time we had been friends for a few months, and she had inevitably pulled me into that giggly, speedy-talking land of hysteria of hers, which was where I really had belonged all along. The register is being taken and we realise that we're next to each-other on the register. 'Jennie,'

'yes miss,'

'Georgia,'

'yes miss,' ...

'...we're both 'E'...' I whisper with great amazement, to Georgia, who's sat next to me, just as uncomfortably against the nobbly wall as I am, to my left.

'oohhhhh yeahh...' she murmurs, joining me in my amazement.

'Everett, Evans... wait... ' My of realization is embarrassingly slow - just as Georgia's is. '...We're both 'Ev'!'

And there you go. That's how the 'Ev' revolution began! Stupidly simple, isn't it? We now call each other Ev all the time. In fact, I genuinely cannot remember the last time Georgia ever called me Jennie or Jen. Its just Ev now. Even her Mum calls me Ev. Arww I love her mum... She's even called 'Mamma Everett' on my phone now!

So as I've said, and hopefully explained, I've become quite fond of this 'random crazy girl' over the last year and a half. But we didn't spark a life-long friendship back in 2003 as two shy little ballet girls, and then failed  once again in the first weeks of year 9 as two very different, young, and in my case, slightly lost, teenagers girls. But then it was third time lucky, as they say! And I couldn't be more happy that is was. As cheesy as it is, I've learnt so much about this girl now and I'm sure she's got me memorized just as much as I have her. I know she's always there for me, and I really would do anything for her. I'm sooo protective over her - as she knows! And for this birthday, I thought I'd add this little extra something different, as it's her sweet 16th and I also know she always puts so much effort into friends presents aswel.

So Ev, I love you so so much my lovely, as always! And I hope remembering all this makes up for my lack of memory of you from ballet all those years ago! :P

Much love, my Ev, my random crazy girl! And happy Birthday <3 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx