Although I knew it was coming, I wasn't prepared for it.

My best friend, Edith, got engaged. She woke me up after midnight July 30 with the good news.

While I convinced Edith my tears were happy, I was really saddened our lives were suddenly so different.

There was a time when our worlds revolved around each other. During junior high and high school, we were inseparable.

Edith and I used to experience everything together. We smoked our first cigarette together. It was at my house, and we stupidly threw them away in the kitchen garbage can. My mom came home and saw them. Of course, we lied about it.

"But, we dumped out your ashtray!"

My mom politely informed me she didn't smoke that brand.

Edith was there sitting beside me when I got my first kiss.

I remember I couldn't close my eyes to concentrate because I was trying not to laugh at her laughing at me.

We went to our first dance together.

After that, it became a ritual. Any dance ever held, we always got dressed at her house, trying on endless outfits that resembled Cher's from "Clueless," and curling our hair with hot rollers. We would have the radio blasting our favorite songs from Ace of Base while we made sure our makeup was applied perfectly on our 12-year-old faces. Edith always proved to be a better date than any boy.

Edith learned to drive with me in the car. She took the spare keys to her parents' Buick one day when they were out of town. We were only 13, but we cruised the town like we were legal that day.

Edith, free as a bird in the driver's seat, I, scared as hell we were going to get caught, in the passenger's seat.

We drove by the house of the cute boy I liked and while I waved, Edith proceeded to run into the ditch. Thank God it was shallow, but as fate would have it, we were on a dead-end street. We had to drive back by him with me hiding on the floorboard in shame.

After our high school graduation, our experiences stopped. Slowly, we developed into our own people and chose different paths.

I chose college and Ruston; she chose beauty school and Monroe.

I went to parties, drank too much, chose the wrong boys to show my affection to and saw less of Edith.

She finished beauty school, got a job, gained a wonderful fiance and saw less and less of me.

Now she will begin a new chapter in her life and although I'll be there sitting in the pews the day she says "I do," it won't be the same.

It will mean the end of an era and of those slumber parties I treasured.

Watching Golden Girls re-runs and prank calling people on the phone. Eating Ramen noodles, French fries (which was all we knew how to cook) and sliced pickles sprinkled with salt, while we discussed boys and what we wanted out of life until odd hours of the night.

Me? I wanted a career. Edith? She wanted a family.

Well Edith, it looks like both of our dreams are coming true.

Stacy Temple is a senior journalism major from Fort Necessity and serves as senior news editor for The Tech Talk. E-mail comments to slt019@latech.edu.