Friendship

It makes me laugh that I have all these great ideas but when I sit down to write they all seem to magically erase from my mind. So, I'll just go with what's floating around in there ... I've been thinking a lot about friendship lately.

I have a really good friend. Let's call her - oh, I don't know .... Michelle. ;-) I've known Michelle for a few years now. We have kids around the same age - in fact, her son gave Emma a sweet shirt that Michelle made that says, "Sorry ... I already have a boyfriend." I think that may be the cutest thing ever ... but I digress. I was talking about friendship. As a friend, Michelle rocks. She is always there for me - despite whatever junk is going on in her life. She listens, she doesn't let me dwell on things, I can meet her at a restaurant for dinner and it's okay that we just have dessert, we exchanged food when our babies were born, we shared mommy stories and stresses. I can tell her anything. She knows things about me that if she ever repeated I'd have to exile her to some remote region with no human contact. She is awesome. The beautiful thing is that I know it's reciprocal. For instance, she left our place last night (after bringing over the sweetest Dora the Explorer cake for Emma's belated birthday party) and had a tire blow out on the highway. Scary, or what?! Well, she knew she could call at midnight and it would be fine and if she wanted, Chris would drive out and help. I love that about our friendship.

I have another group of friends who are also wonderful. I felt sort of like a geek when I started talking about them to people but I think I'm over it now. These incredible women are all part of an msn Christian mommies group. There's a small number of us so we've been able to get to know each other and be comfortable to the point that we can share "reality" with each other. We share joys and sorrows (how cliche) , birthday parties and husband stories (all good, of course), we laugh, we cry, we exchange presents and postcards, delight in kid stories and feel like we've all known each other in person for years. You'd think - from some of our conversations - that we were all sitting in someone's living room drinking tea. These friendships are powerful and they transcend the miles in between us. We are scattered from Florida to California to British Columbia to Alberta and all over the place in between. You'd never know it. Some of us have been lucky enough to meet in person. Let me tell you how cool that is!!!!

Funny how friendship doesn't realize that it should be hampered by distance. I have Michelle here in person, I have my girls online. But all of them are special and precious and their friendship has been life-changing for me. So yes, at first it sounds like I'm a bit of a geek to have online friends - but you know, I think that first and foremost, I'm just blessed. It's a good place to be.