Red Rover

July.

What a month for friends.

For the unwavering.
For the steadfast.
For the childhood one.
For the one you just met.
For the one next to you under the pop of the fireworks.


In the last few weeks my calendar has been full with plans, based on my own urgency to really CONNECT.
I've sought out true bond like a bee seeks nectar.
Crucial to life,
Crucial to legacy.
So much is changing these days. So much seems fleeting. I feel like grabbing at the solid things.

So I chose to grab at friends.

I've opened my door to welcome someone in still dressed in my pajamas.
And I've opened my door to go out with someone decked to the nines.

It's been a constant rotating door.

My old green couch is now sagging heavily in places from all of the sitting, and sharing life.

One friend giving me the feeling that I needed to lower her a life boat.
One friend giving me the feeling that we were rowing a boat together with the current of purpose, and a Greater Plan.

There were conversations about lost love, lost jobs, lost family bond, and lost babies.
Tears, laughter, and way, WAY too much caffeine.

We dove in to life head first with lukewarm coffees in hand, and dried mystery stains on our shoulders.

And as they all cycled through, I started to feel like this week was a turning point in my life.
I stood there slathering peanut butter beside them all,
(Because, somehow, there was ALWAYS peanut butter.)
And as I looked sideways at them,

Somehow it was something MORE than JUST making lunch.

It was LIFE.

Somehow,
it became everything.

Someone who also hears the shrieks, and fills the bowls, and wipes the butts,
but yet is somehow still, behind their eyes, the THEM they always were.

Somewhere beneath a whole lot of under-eye concealer, and a slightly dragged down look was the friend I'd danced with to a car stereo at the beach.
A friend I'd snuck out with.
A friend who knew things about me in a way no one else did.

Who had seen the THEN,
and still chose the NOW.

A co-laborer.
A person with whom to link arms

And RUN.

Red Rover, Red Rover. Send your true self on over.


Even when we weren't really able to talk for all of the pleas for goggles, and cheese-its, and someone to help wipe.

Even without one single word.

There we stood.

Side by side.

And that's something.

Because there's something about locking eyes with someone whose eyes bulge like yours.
Your own mirrored, crazy reflection.
There's a re-fueling that happens in that moment.

There's something about admitting that you don't have it all together.

Something about actually officially naming your couch
"The Couch Where People Don't Have it All Together."
Cross-stitched pillow as a label.

And what a beauty that none of them are the same.

Human snowflakes.

Because I know I need every kind.

I need the one whose face I've seen across from mine through every mountain, and valley of life.
The one who
I'd always call.

I need the wild-eyed one that lets me know I'm not alone.
The one who I count to three, and leap with.

I need the grounded one, that reminds me to breathe.
The one I thank later.

I need the one that lets her kids eat off the floor sometimes because...Well - I need REALITY.
The one I identify with.

I need the one with more kids than me that makes me feel calm.
The one I look up to.

I need the one with no kids that makes me remember myself.
The one that lives at the core of me.


Because then, what I remember is that I was a friend first.

Before all the noise, and goggles, and cheese-its, and wiping.

A friend.

To them.
To my husband.
To myself.

And that is such a beautiful thing to be.