Ladies and Gentlemen, The Signal
My journey through the story of two unbelievable people who share one of the most beautiful and inspiring friendships I’ve ever come across.
By Aimee Davies
“I give up on stuff easily- it’s not that I don’t have determination, what I don’t have is patience. When things become difficult or confusing I turn away from them but what do you notice? When it comes to our friendship I always say ‘I’ll never give up’ and because I’ve never really said or meant that before, I’m in completely unfamiliar territory. Like walking into the fog without… fog lights… or any type of lights for that matter”. That is one of the most powerful things she ever said to me and if fog lights would really save their friendship once and for all, I’d be buying her some right now. The tag-line of 2004 movie ‘The Notebook’ states that “behind every great love is a great story” and I think I’ve found one of the greatest.
For two people so incomprehensively different, the two people I’m writing about right now sometimes appear to be exactly the same. They disagree about most things, constantly make everything a competition and are prone to misjudging what the other one says. Nevertheless, they’re closer than two stuck together pieces of thin paper, and everybody knows that when you stick together two pieces of thin paper it essentially just makes one normal piece of paper. As far as writing this story goes, I took my time in getting information and thinking for hours about just how to express what I found. That’s because for these two, they deserve this story to be written right. A story simply quoting them and stating the obvious would do them no justice because just as much as anyone else, they need an insight into their friendship as well.
I’m not going to go through this whole story without mentioning that they have their fair share of problems. When I decided to write about this I can’t say I was honestly expecting the story I got, I can tell you I expected much more of a fairytale. Then I realised, that’s essentially what I got, not a text-book fairytale like Cinderella but an epic real-life fairytale better than any “I rode to a ball in a pumpkin” story and don’t get me wrong, I’m a massive Cinderella fan.
As ridiculous as it sounds, these two made me believe in fate. When a brother and sister move to a new school and the younger sister befriends a girl her age with a sister that’s the age of her brother. The girls become best friends and their siblings become vaguely aware of the other siblings existence. Various times they end up in the same place until one day they’re sat at the same table for an entire dinner. Then one day a few months later the older sister is so bored she decides to add the older brother on MSN and he’s bored enough to talk to her for quite a while. You will not convince me that story isn’t a sign of fate and two people that were always meant to be friends.
They never have had a normal friendship, from the shock at just how well they got along in the first place to the first few misunderstandings; things were interesting from the very beginning. Still, no matter what went on, that surprising connection they had seemed enough for both of them, even as people who barely knew each other, to try their hardest at overcoming everything they faced. During one of our many conversations she said to me “it was like every time it seemed like it was all going to fall apart, it only got stronger”. He said to me “I don’t care what gets in the way of our friendship, I want it to keep going”.
The more I type about this the more I realise just how much I can’t actually get across to you in words. The more I try to explain their friendship on a page, the more I realise that you’ll only truly understand if you’d lived it all with me. The two of them are absolutely amazing, both as individuals and especially as friends, they are incredible people. It’s easy to doubt their entire friendship based on one story of the more difficult times, I know once or twice at the very beginning I did exactly that. Yet the more you listen and the more you learn from and about them, the more you realise that they have an uncompromising love and appreciation for the other, no matter what. Regardless of wether they’re friends forever or wether life separates them, I know for sure that they will both always remember and care for the other.
The hardest thing they’ve had to deal with by far was six weeks without each other, an entire forty four days without speaking a direct word. She described it as “feeling like I’d lost the keys to my house and was sleeping outside in the cold”. He said “I knew something was missing, it kept me up at night thinking, wondering if she was doing the same, if she remembered me”. It was during those six weeks that I met them and even though at the time they had already assumed the other didn’t care anymore; their friendship had a warming spirit. It was one o’clock in the morning; they both sounded tired and uninterested- then I began to ask them about each other and it was like I’d fed them powerful coffee shots. By far the most overwhelming thing for me at this stage was being in the middle of two people who missed each other so much, yet not being able to do anything about it.
The most important thing I could tell you about these two is that they changed the others life. Neither of them would be where or who they are today without the other. I collected information from them for two months before I sat down to properly write this, for those two months essentially all I did was copy and paste, stringing together some useless sentences as I went. Before I began to write out what would eventually become my final copy, I gave myself time to read through everything I had written down. I read every single thing they’d said and remembered the way hearing them speak about each other could totally turn around my day. I read the short conclusions I’d made then took turns reading his answers to a question and then reading hers.
After all that, I turned my attention to the final thing. I had asked the both of them to write something short about the other and the friendship, just so I knew exactly what to write about. Just for the record, they both ended up writing over 1000 words. I read hers first, giggling through most of it, especially when she essentially begins talking to herself, yet when I get to the end I’m completely lost for words. She describes him as “the most important person in her life” and talks about how sorry she is for everything that’s happened. I then pick up his, yet again I’m giggling as he writes down everything he’s doing as well as also beginning to talk to himself. He says she helped him trust people and talks about how bad he feels that they can’t be proper best friends. Still, by far the most powerful part is when he begins to talk as though she’s sitting right in front of him, he jokes about how that would be weird, but you can tell he definitely wishes she was. Even though he mentions how surprised he is that she’s still around after all they’ve been through, he says “I’m just happy she is still here”.
When I was done reading both, I sat there in complete silence, unable to truly comprehend what I’d just read and despite the fact that I hardly ever get emotional, I started to cry just a little. I would trade all of these words for you all to have lived through that with me, to have seen me use half the tissues in the house that Sunday night. I’m still not sure how to express the strength of what you feel when you speak to these two about each other and about their friendship. Suddenly two average kids talking about food or homework change into powerful people who have the ability to completely reach out and touch your heart.
To them I’d like to say just how much it upsets me that their friendship isn’t what it should be. They’re close enough to be the best of friends, yet something holds both of them back. They say it’s ‘awkwardness’, I say they’re both just scared of what other people will think. She talked about the possibility of having the freedom to just go to his house, be like a normal best friend and she said “before it’s too late”. Unfortunately for them, this time around there really is a ‘too late’. I want them to know that rules were made for breaking, opinions were made for changing and obstacles were made for defeating. This can’t become the difference between her being a ‘reason’ or a ‘lifetime’. There’s chocolate in the bushes, stop wasting time contemplating how stupid that sounds, just trust me and go and get the chocolate before it melts.
I can’t tell you that their friendship will last forever, neither can I tell you I even believe myself that it will. Still, I can tell you that no matter what the two of them continually surprise me and I can tell you I believe there’s a chance they’ll make it a long way. Neither of them truly understands why I picked them to write this about. They both say they don’t understand “how something about me can be interesting”. It’s true that on their own they’re probably not worth over 1600 words but they don’t seem to realise that together they have a magical ambient they have heart and they have a wonderful story. They’re amazing together, they’re stronger together and if they know what’s best for them, they’ll always be together.
Bibliography-
The Notebook (Movie) 2004
Quotes, Plot, Information
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0332280/
Thanks To…
Luke Taylor
For being so helpful during two months of complete interrogation and happily answering every question I asked. Your uncompromised hope and optimism provided great inspiration for the entire story. Considering the fact that you’d never even met me, I’m thankful for the unconditional trust you gave me.
Ashleigh Gade
Also for being so helpful during two months of complete interrogation and happily answering every question I asked, as well as helping greatly with the writing, editing and improvement of the entire essay. The emotion and thought you put into this entire story, despite the fact that you thought you sounded “really pathetic” was always so beautiful and realistic.
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