J.

The Spectacular Ms J. will be celebrating her 29th (sort-of) birthday on Wednesday. Her birthday will arrive here in Oz before it arrives in Canada, so I figure we can make this a 37 hour sort of celebration.

Every year I've tried to celebrate her birthday here in a different way. This year, I thought I'd try and express what J. means to me. What her friendship means to me.

I came up blank.

How can I describe it?

Friend seems like such a silly word. It is not a word I throw around lightly - there are truly few people I'd call "my friend". The world however, looks at it differently. Friend is used by many to describe their 532 acquaintances they've acquired on Facebook. So, by todays standards, friend doesn't have the same meaning anymore.

BFF is even more ridiculous. It conjures up visions of giggling girls on their cell phones, and high school; and who really wants to relive high school? Again, not an appropriate word to describe what J. is to me.

Mate might be more appropriate in my new land, but its a silly word to say. And is J. my schoolmate (we did go to University at the same time, but we didn't really know each other)?; or is she my workmake (we did work together but havent' for a long time, and workmate just implies someone you see and interact with at work)? And soulmate has connotations which are inappropriate to describe a relationship between two married-to-men women.

Chum seems like a word my parents would have used, and comrade makes me think of Soviets.

Maybe sidekick? I'm tall, she's short. She's friendly, I'm not. We complement each other in many many ways. However, I think superheroes or Western movies with that word.

Thesaurus.com also recommends consort and accomplice. I could possibly consider accomplice, but we haven't really committed any crimes - we've only thought about it.

So, I come to the end of the synonym recommendations for friend, and I conclude that there truly are no words to describe it. I just looked up "indescribable" and one of the words was transcendent. Maybe I'll go with that.

Or I'll just stick with keeping it between J. and I. I know she gets it.