Chemistry.

Zach and Kelly.

Laverne and Shirley.

Mickey and Minnie.

Derrick and Meredith.

The entire Friends cast.

Pooh and Piglet.

The M o o n and The S t a r s.

Last week I was asked some questions regarding Chemistry. I've been thinking about how the people we tend to fight for most are the ones that when we are with them, we cannot deny the truth.

In High School I went with my friend Meagan and her parents to Disney World. The plan was that my BFF Greg would come, and her BFF Jeff would come. Perfect. A vacation in the most magical place on earth. This was going to be dynamite. It was until Greg couldn't come. And I didn't know Jeff, so we weren't going to invite him anymore. Debbie her mother, didn't know this change in plans and invited Jeff anyway.

He said yes.

So... off we went. I met Jeff in the car on the way to the airport. I remember we were matching. I was wearing khaki shorts and a polo. So was he. I knew going into the trip that Meagan had a crush on Jeff. I didn't know really anything more about him. We didn't run in the same social circles at school, and never shared a class. I literally had no idea who Jeff Lane was.

But it was instant.

Someone said something on the way to the airport and I was in a fit of giggles, as was he. And that was it. We were instant best friends. Now imagine how awkward this was in light of the fact I was on Meagan's family vacation, I knew she liked him, and yet he and I hit it off. We weren't inappropriate. But, it was different. And it was special.

After a very fun and magical time in Disney we all returned to Connecticut to start school the next day, our Junior Year. After many late nights up watching fireworks, eating out at fun establishments, and riding the Tower of Terror more then a dozen times our last night, there was nothing at home that would top the week.

I left for that trip really close to Greg, he was really special to me at the time, and even though he was Jewish and I was not- I think we both deeply respected our convictions to what we believed was the truth, even if it contradicted each other (on a multitude of levels). I walked into Junior year, up the stairs and a hooked a left down the hall to my locker. I turned around, and Jeff's locker was across from me. It had been across from me the entire time, I never knew it, or knew him. The weeks that followed that trip included a very hurtful explosion between Greg and I, whom felt replaced and hurt. One morning Greg and another friend of our's approached me with a box. I had asked at one point for a book or something I had lent him. Not thinking anything of the box, I said thank you and let him walk away. Finally realizing that a box is not an appropriate device to hold a book, I opened it. Inside were all my letters, tokens and gifts we had exchanged the year prior. It was our story. In a box.

My third period teacher Mrs. Arneth was also our Dean. I loved her. Having unraveled the rest of the morning in the arrival of this box, I collected myself and it and went to her office. I sat and I cried. Jeff joined me. On the floor of her office I spread out the things that the box contained. I had one singular hand on my back, right in the middle... the one place when touched I instantly feel secure and protected. I looked up at him after I noticed something drop, and I saw a steady stream of tears that matched my own.

And that is when the friendship that was so fun, turned into something so real. In my High School experience, I can't say that there was anyone that I loved more then him. He still hung out with his friends, and I did my thing with Young Life and Emmaus. We lived our own lives, but I knew that across the hall from my locker was someone that could catch my glance and read my entire heart.

After High School ended I moved to a street in New Haven, and Jeff came to visit one day. Jessica his then girlfriend, now wife was away at school. Strangely enough it was a a street he himself was familiar with and had lived on a short time (we had at that point already a long list of coincidences: named pets the same thing was one of our first realizations).What's refreshing about true real chemistry is that it doesn't disappear with time. It led us to a really great place, and I loved being able to spend time with him and hear about his life, his love, his future, his plans. I was happy. He came to my birthday party one Fall, and I still have the photograph of him with all my new friends and in my new life. We had always dreamed of moving to San Francisco together, and the gift he gave that year spoke to it- a movie set there.

I can't imagine my teenage years without him. I have a couple of cards still tucked away in a special place with his signature, and I have a picture or two from us at my brother's wedding... but the picture I love most is the one with him, and I posing with Tigger at breakfast one morning while we were still meeting.

I am relational. I have had some incredibly meaningful relationships in my life. I have been loved and known and hurt and disappointed. I have countless friends that I could invite to a party... and I have friends that stay well after the party has ended to help clean up. In my life however I have met 3 people that in the instant we met, there was so much to say. I don't compare or place people in my heart according to the instant intensity.

But some people are magic.

Some people are a fairy tale.

Jeff and I grew up and apart. We never had a fight, we just had moved on into different things. It wasn't painful. There was no yelling, no fighting, and no crying. Life happened. We grew up. I think about him from time to time. There is one song that catches me on the radio and I have to smile and laugh as I am instantly returned to a 16 year old (and I love that Kathryn will also hear it, and think of us). We didn't share similar views on God or Christianity- which just proves to me that some bonds can overcome the biggest obstacles and opposition. I don't know if his views have changed since adulthood, and I pray that as he becomes a Father himself one day- that maybe he will be more open to the Creator. He's going to be a great Father. Having been hurt by one himself, I have always believed and known that his children are going to be so blessed by his heart for them. I knew that at 16, and 15 years later I still feel it swell in my heart when I think of the man I hope he became. I'm so grateful for having known him. I was invited to his wedding a few years but could not attend. I remember the day that the invitation came, and how excited and joyful I was for him, and Jessica and how still after all the years since we met, I was part of a guest list invited to celebrate.

Though, chemistry can be tricky.

Those in which you feel some bigger connection to, always hurt and scar a little deeper then the rest. Those wounds take more time to heal. Those people become the ones we most want to have in our lives and forgive- but are the most scary. Nothing worthwhile is easy. I think the risk of being hurt again or still allow our connections to others the permission to place it somewhere safe. We remove aspects of ourselves and the other person to make us, and our hearts comfortable. The risk. The intensity is released, so that we can still have them in our lives- just safely. I debate daily how to live a life balanced between rational thought and submission to something difficult to articulate.

I have not seen Jeff in years. Probably something like 10. I imagine running into him one day in Disney World, with our respective families in tow. We will laugh, and share a great story from August 1997 when we met and were instant life long friends- even though we don't know each other now, upon meeting again it will be as it always had been. Instant. True. Friends.

And what I've learned with true chemistry, is that we may not always be able to see or talk to someone we are so magically connected to, however in that way it likens the moon and the stars- even when out of sight, they are still and are always there.