Soul Sisters

Oh.M.Gee, Friends,

 

My Besties came to visit me.

 

They pulled in and scooped me up,

and within moments we were in Chicago

for our weekend adventure.

 

The weather behaved, perfectly.

Windy City represented.

 (Julie, Tiffany, Me, Cathie)

 

With 9 kids, 4 husbands,

jobs, school, sports, and distance

between us

it is a minor miracle

that we are still getting together.

 

I was prepared to show them a good time.

 

We hit all the hot spots.

 

Dinner at the Purple Pig,

where I ate

 and loved...

bone marrow.

 

Don't puke.

Add a crostini and some arugula.

Delish.

 

Then, we spent late night
at the best Blue's Club ever,
where we grooved and laughed.

We would have felt totally out of place,
except we were together,
so despite the crowd,
it felt like we were
the only people in the room.



We spent the whole next day at a spa.

 

Massages, facials, steam room, sauna,

hot tub, champagne.

 

Need I say more?

 

Just like the. best. day. ever.

 

I napped and read and laughed and cried. 

 

These girls.

 

My home.
 

 Let me explain, 1 by 1.

 

My first memory of Cathie

 was a play date

when I was 4 years old.

 

We walked to the grocery store and bought

real baby food for our dolls.

 

Banana flavor, to be specific.

The dolls didn't love it,
so we ate it ourselves.

 

We loved it.

 

Somehow, I knew I had a friend for life.

 

Sometimes our friendship looked like
her honking the horn in my driveway 
to give me a ride to school.
 

The horn had just woke me up,
so it took a good few 20 minutes or so,
to get the car.

(she waited on me)

When I got to the car,

she could barely speak to me.

I wouldn't be friends
with someone like this,
but she was. 

She was mad,
but she was still there.
 

Sometimes our friendship looked like

secret languages with our eyes
and stifled giggles in the principle's office,
as we mutually created stories
on the fly
that portrayed us
as the innocent truancy victims
that we were.

 

Sometimes it looked like,

her driving 3 hours
to visit me in college,

because she needed to feel,
 at home,
 with someone.

That home person was me.
 

She would leave 2 hours later,

because she got her fix

and needed to get back to life.

At one time it looked like,
her in the room when
I was giving birth to Lily.

She was there
to give me a cold wash cloth.
She got me a bucket
when I said I have to puke.

When I felt
like no one else in the room was listening to me,
Cathie gave me a washcloth,
and affirmed she heard me,
and has a bucket,
and its ok if I puke,
which I did,
because she tells me
I am amazing
and about to have a baby,
and she is impressed,
I am making it look so easy.

As I lay cursing,
asking Jesus just to take me,
 in my worst state.

At one time our friendship looked like

me in the room
while she birthed her son, Jesse.
 

When she about to give up
 and call the whole thing off,
I took charge and
started bossing the nurses around
 to get her just what I knew she needed

 in that moment
to see her labor progress

and how soon he would arrive.
 
I was fighting back my own tears,
as I knew her life was about to change
for the best.

Forever. 

She was about to understand how much
her belated mom loved her.

In that moment I was,

ignoring her requests
for "no pictures",

as I snapped shot after shot
of her newborn baby
behind her back,

knowing she would
 treasure these, first glances, 
in the future.

(she does)

 

Cathie is my sister.

 

We are both headstrong and impossible

and always right.

 

No one else in the world could ever

be best friends with us.

 

We are hard to handle.

 

Precisely why we are a perfect match.

 

Cathie is a left brained genius
and she shows me more love and compassion

than humanly possible.

 

That is Cathie.

She defies all odds.

 

Always.

 

She is always on my team and on my side.

 

She only has good thoughts about me.

She only admires me.

 

I don't know who I would be without her.

 

She has been my steadfast support,

 for as long as I can remember.
 

And still,

to this day,

she praises me.
 

Always.
 

When I know,

she knows,

far too much about my short comings.

 

She continues to think I am amazing,

and God Bless her,

I love her for that.

 

My one person that only sees my good,

and ignores the rest.

 

I adore her.
 

She's my barometer,
my checkpoint,
if I'm ok.

Because I trust her.

I respect her.

I look up to her.

I love her.

She credits me for mothering her,

in absence of her own mom,

 that left us way to young,

mostly before Cathie even has memory.

 

But she remembers the taste of baby cereal
and it reminds her of her mom.

 

And we enjoyed baby food

at the age of 4 together,

and maybe that means

 we were always meant to be together.
 

As fate would have it.

 

Then there's Tiffany.

 

My Gawd, Tiffany.

 

My newest bestie.

We have only known each other for 20 years.

 

I am infatuated with Tiffany,

and have always been.

 

I was crushing on her at first site.

 

We lived on the same floor,

our first year at college.

 

 I took one look and it was over.

 

She was gorgeous. 
Sophisticated!

 

From "The Cities",  
not Lodi.

 

 Palazzo pants and a perfectly worn jean jacket

and a Meg Ryan haircut.

 

And, come on, her name was TIFFANY.

 

She was pretty much everything,

I always wanted to be.

 

Blonde. 
Had a boyfriend. 

Her mom makes German pancakes,

and works at Macy's!

 

I mean seriously,

could we just switch lives for a minute? 

 

Tiffany was living my dream.

 

 

Then I got to know her for real.

We developed a mutual love.

 

I was everything she was not.

Loud.  Dramatic. Funny.

 

She is everything I am not.

Moderate. Balanced. Easy.

 

She is absolutely the best person to go anywhere with because she has no hidden agenda

about anything.

 

She is smart and insightful and open.

 

She is not fussy

or controlling or emotional,

like everyone else in my life is,

including me. 

 

She shows me there is another way to do things.

 

I like her way.

 

And I love her.

 

She is not the Tiffany,

I assumed she was, when we met.

 

She comes with a story,

like we all do.

 

We always connect immediately upon arrival.

There is never any warm up with Tiff.

 

We are just there, together,

as we have always been.

 

We know each other, without having to explain.

 

Somewhere, in those college moments

spent at parties, on Spring Breaks, in bathrooms, at the library, or on those long late night walks

have totaled up

into a very intimate lifelong friendship.

 

Tiffany is ying

to my yang.

 

A most necessary and important

friend to have.

 



 

And Julie.

Gaww.

Can I even write anything about Julie

to do us justice?
 

No.

 

Julie is my lobster.

 

My mate for life.

 

She is my one.

 

I know I have a lot of One's.

I have D, my mom, Cathie, Jennifer, Bridget,
Lily, and C.

 

Julie is my person.
 

No lie.

 

If for nothing else,

we were put on this earth for each other.

 

I absolutely believe that to be true.

 

We are both crazy.

Literally.

Honestly.

 

This so called craziness,

is the human connection between us.

 

Julie makes me love my crazy.

Because she gets it.
 

She gets me.

 

And back at her.
 

Life would be so terrible and boring
and frankly,

stupid,
without her.

 

She is the person,

 I don't have defenses with.

 

I am only 100% honest with her,

and therefore myself,

when I am with her.

 

She shares her vulnerability

so easily with me.

 

I can only respond with the same truth.

 

That makes the joy that we share,

so much more joyful.

 

Because it is at 100%.
 

Only truth.

 

Gut laughs by the minute.
 

At ourselves.
 

Each other.
 

The world.
 

Life.
 

Death.

 

All of it,
is a hilarious
and joyous,
very anxious ride
on a big roller coaster
that scares the shit out of us.

We have full understanding of this.

So we hold hands,
throw them in the air
and scream and laugh,
with mutual mania and understanding.

Who could be without a Julie?

 

She's the most

insane person ever,

which makes me feel

perfectly comfortable,

and thankful for my own insanity.

 

Like Cathie, Julie is also my sister.

 

We had our first sleepover in 6th grade.

 

We shared our deepest secrets.

 

Since that day,

we haven't stopped sharing our deepest secrets.
 

And the older you get the bigger your secrets get.

 

She's my confessional.

She's my religion.

 

I believe in her.

 

And her,

in me.

 

And you should see the way she moves to the Blues music.

 

I hate to turn into a Guns and Roses song,
but she's got a smile, eyes, hair...
...that takes me away to that special place,

where I feel free.

 

The final moments of our weekend,

we found ourselves,
in the wee hours of Sunday morning

with 4 of the 12 seats

sitting around a piano, here.



 

We sang along to so many good tunes,

including Billy Joel,
the real Piano Man,

who was in town,

and we were sure he was about to show up.
 

But we couldn't stay past 2 am to find out.

We did have kids to get back to later that morning.

 

"Only the Good Die Young",

brought tears and smiles and hoots out to

our classmate, Gabe,

with more emotion

than any of us could express,

with words,
so luckily,
 it was loud,

and we just kept singing.

And smiling.

And crying.

All at once.
 

Knowing.
 

Only the love that we all have,

for our friend, we carry with us.

 

 As we carry each other
through life's joys and sorrows.

 



 

 

 

I am beyond lucky

to have such beautiful friends,

 to witness my life.

 

I love you, Besties!