Friday, March 26, 2010

Grace



These are the beautiful tulips that showed up at my house unexpectedly on Friday last week, brought by a dear, dear friend here in Austin to encourage me at the end of my spring break. I started this blog three years ago solely to keep up with my wonderful friends in Houston when we moved. I wanted them to know what was going on in our lives and only later did it become a forum for my more random thoughts and writing. I could never have imagined then that there were other wonderful friends waiting here in Austin and that I would come to love them deeply.
In order to really understand this, you have to know that friendship was really, really hard for me as a kid. Almost every really painful memory I have from childhood came from peer relationships, especially with other girls. I eventually learned how to fake it, and I did make some friends, but I left high school not really caring if I ever saw anyone there again. I wasn't much better at friendship in college and often felt jealous of the girls who seemed to find their soulmate, not in a dating relationship but in a friend. I had friends but I was never anyone's best friend and I felt like I was on the outside looking in.
When I married C, I married someone who knows how to do friendship well and I learned a lot. Gradually, after we moved to Waco, I started to make real friends (whom I love to this day) and then in Houston, my life just exploded with the most awesome people who wanted to share life with me. And when I left them behind, I was desperate to keep the connection alive (hence this blog), not even dreaming that there would be people here in Austin that I will keep for a lifetime.
I am so blessed.

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