When I Wasn't Working my Summer Job

When I wasn’t working my summer job as a lifeguard, I spent my summer away from ONU going on many small adventures with my best friend, Jillian.

Jillian and I have been friends for as long as I can remember. Our families attended the same church, and I believe that nothing brings two individuals together than sharing the same faith. Jillian and I embarked on many small adventures through our childhood, mostly via our imaginations. We would visit faraway lands with malicious antagonists and we would fabricate stories with twisting plots and perpetual happy endings… The best part was that we never left our backyards. As we grew older, however, we craved more than imagination and made up castles that reside on Jillian’s backyard trampoline, and we stopped hanging out as frequently. Jillian is two years younger than me, and therefore two grades below me; we spent our childhoods waiting for Jillian to grow up so that we would be in the same education building as me. Because of this and the fact that we grew out of our imaginations, we would go through periods of time where we wouldn't talk for months, and in some cases we wouldn’t hang out for up to a year. Of course we would see each other in the Sunday service at the Nazarene Church, but then we would go about our own lives during the week.

Despite these times that we spent apart, whenever I saw Jillian, I knew that I had a “forever friend” in her. I knew growing up that no matter how long we spent apart, we would always pick up exactly where we left off. Her friendship is like a perfect gift from God.

This summer was the last summer we would again be preparing for the next step of our higher education at the same time. Jillian is starting her first year of undergraduate college-- and in the true Jillian fashion, of course she is going to California to live and learn in San Diego. Jillian, even though she is younger than I am, would always do crazy courageous things. Her family owned a houseboat on Lake Cumberland in Kentucky and she would go on wild adventures almost everyday. At a young age, she was jet skiing by herself, obtained as boat license, knee boarded, jumped off of cliffs, rode rope swings, climbed steep walls -- all with little to no fear. I am older than her, but I have always looked up to her.

I actually had the pleasure of visiting their house boat this summer. It had been 8 years since I had visited them; I feel like I am not even old enough to get to say that. While I was there, I experienced many things or the first time. I drove a jetski, I jumped off of a 50 foot cliff, I jumped off of a *highly dangerous* rope swing, and I surfed off the back of the boat! In all honesty, I never would have done these things by myself. But I did all of these things because Jillian and I are often on the same brain waves and whenever she has the confidence to do something, I immediately feed off of her energy and I never feel anxiety.

Thankfully, this was also true when we jumped out of a plane that was 14,000 feet in the air, 5 days before she left or California. After I visited her in Kentucky, we scheduled our flight for August 13th. The whole trip was on a whim, and I barely felt like it was real. If this were JP ten weeks ago, I would've cancelled my flight immediately. But I knew that Jillian would be positive about the whole situation, and there was no one I would have jumped out of a plane with, or spent the summer with than Jillian. I know that in California, even if I get jealous, she will be this sort of friend to all of the people that she meets.