writing

I have this dear friend that I met when we moved to God-foresaken AL 3 years ago. The first time I saw her, I felt immediately intimidated. We were at the "Y", pretty much the only thing to do in Pratteville. I drug the J's with me because everyone told me, "You have got to join the Y especially for the pool."  Anyway, she was signing up too. She was standing with her 3 kiddos signing up for the "Y". She was tall, thin, dressed super cute and had that fabulous silky black hair I have always wished for.  We didn't make eye contact, thank goodness or she would have thought I was a stalker!  Fast forward. BigJ and Middle J go to school for a couple of days and Middle J comes home and says, "Can I have a play date with my new friend Grace?". I am not a big fan of play dates for my kids in which I have not met the kid or the parents. I don't do play dates unless I really know the family. For some reason, I called the mother and started chatting. We chatted for quite a while. They were living in AL for the same reason, her hubby was going to the AF school, however he was in the Navy. After we chatted I decided it would be ok for Middle J and I to have a play date at their house.  Yep, you guessed it, it was the tall, thin, dressed super cute, with fabulous black hair person! I will refer to her as "M".  We instantly connected. The girls became the best of friends and still write to each other 3 years later.  "M" and I became work-out buddies, book club buddies, we chatted about everything and nothing. We watched chick-flicks together. I even got her started on StarBucks!  After we moved away, they to FL and us to VA, we talked nearly every Friday afternoon. I loved it. I actually had a friend that made no judgement of me EVER. I have had friends that have truly judged me and I am very gun shy about making friends with people. She was and never has been that way. She wants me to gush about the Js, our new house, MILove's job or just simply whine.  I just love her.

Over the past 18 months, we have really lost touch. Go figure...kids activities, work, life. By the way...she calls her kiddos the 3 Gs. The similarities about us are uncanny. We joke we live in parallel lives. Silly things like, "I just watched this movie...."shut-up" I saw the same movie. Or our TV just died and we bought a new one. I shit you not, we bought the same TV!!!  We took forever to breakdown and buy a laptop...seriously we bought the same laptop. I just read a great book and she just finished the same book--and the most important of all (because it is a purse). We bought the same Vera purse, same color withing a week or two of each other.. All of this with her in FL and me in VA.
M wrote me a long typed letter at Christmas to catch me up on what is going on with her. I loved it. I couldn't remember the last time I had received a letter.I read it many times. I keep it in my  nightstand and pulled it out today to reread it.  I kept telling her, I would write her a similar one and send it "soon". Well, today I finally wrote it. It was 3 pages typed!  It was so nice to be able to type freely, brag freely, bitch freely and know she would not judge me at all.  Writing to her inspired me to write about her tonight. I miss you "M"!!