Our story is not that unusual. And that’s the beauty – we’ve found the extraordinary in an “ordinary” friendship. 

We were two Black girls growing up in a mid-sized predominantly White midwestern town that was unconcerned about whether we’d live or prosper. Designated as “smart” and not quite fitting in, we had big dreams.  

On that hot September day just before Labor Day in 1982, the neighborhood street was blocked off. Music blared as teenagers swarmed the food tables at the back-to-school dance. 

As a freshman, I was there with my older sister and fully prepared to be integrated into her friendships. Although I didn’t like to dance or being outside with the bugs, I was having fun just before taking a bathroom break. 

As I walked in, I saw a tall Black girl at the mirror applying her makeup. She had a curl like mine—it was the 80s—but that’s where our commonality seemed to end. The girl was just shy of 6 feet tall, nearly a foot taller than me. She wore glasses and a whole lot of confidence. 

“Hi,” she said enthusiastically. “My name is Dawn. Do you want to be friends?” Just like that! In one breathless sentence she’d stated exactly what she wanted and unbeknownst to me my life changed forever. 

“Sure,” I replied as my older sister and her “cool friends” snickered at two freshmen eager to connect. 

In the 40-plus years since, Dawn has been involved in every event in my life – big and small. We attended college together, navigated relationships together, counseled each other while building successful careers, supported each other as wives (and then ex-wives), mothers, and now women planning the next chapters of our lives. We’ve cheered as goal after goal has been achieved, cried at times where life has knocked one—or both—of us down. We reminded each other of our love and worth. 

I’ve learned several important lessons during our friendship including:

1. At a time when it is popular to see how many friends you can claim, my relationship with Dawn reminds me that you really need just one. One really good friend who is as fierce about you as you are about her and open to growing together. Someone to be trusted with secrets and scared-to-confess dreams.

2. Having someone who appreciates playfulness and adventure makes for a well-lived, joyous life. Over the years, we have explored Hawaii (a dream of young Crystal’s), started businesses (a plan of young Dawn’s), and traipsed around Martha’s Vineyard and our hometown Evansville, IN, among other places. We have explored hobbies, navigated professional wins and losses, and laughed and cried our way through a million experiences both mundane and extraordinary. All with the same hearts of the young girls we once were even as we gain new insights and perspectives.

3. Being different from each other is good, and it rocks when you are different but share core values and life experiences. I can see my young friend in the face and decisions of my decades-long best friend, and I am so excited when she achieves one of the goals set by a younger version of herself.

4. Having that one friend doesn’t mean only. Dawn and I both enjoy rich friendships with other people. In many cases, we have each developed deep, meaningful and lasting friendships with those who began as friends of the other one. I have always appreciated the universe for bringing such amazing women into Dawn’s life—like me, she is a woman with a lot of interests, energy, and passions. I can’t do it all or be everything to her, so I’ve appreciated and embraced her sorority sisters and the other warm, accomplished women she’s introduced me to over the years. She’s a connector and even if we don’t know each other in real life, these women and I certainly know each other in love—having done favors and offered support, shared in joys and heartaches of the women who radiate from our central friendship. 

Godmothers to each other’s children, Dawn and I recently dropped her daughter off at our midwestern alma mater. As we said goodbye, I asked the universe to send my goddaughter a friend like mine—someone who would be extraordinary during an “ordinary” life.

Who is your extraordinary friend?