life preservers.

I can't see faces anymore, just outlines of bodies swaying to the music. Still, I kick further because I'm not scared yet.

The water, any water is always more terrifying to me when I'm not submerged in it. It seems to me like a suggestion of a threat, an idea that gently points to danger, 'You can't control this." Yet, when I'm up to my neck, I almost always feel swaddled. Carried. Held onto. Isn't it funny that we call them bodies of water? I guess so much of their anatomy does personify human action, at least in my mind.

I kick further and further, waiting for someone to notice how brave I am, how far I've gone, what distance I've put between myself and the rocky cliffs of shore.

"You should be scared, " I think to them. "What if something happened to me now? Could you save me in time?"

Do we sometimes do things just to make people prove their love for us? Just so they try to keep us safe? Just to test and make sure.

There's a flat boulder perched on the shore. It's where we're allowed to congregate now that we're here for round two. Going to the Mansion is a privilege we've earned with our blistered feet and sore shoulders. Those trays get heavier all the time.

The boulder my friends rest upon is suspended several feet above the water at an angle no man could have willingly produced. Somehow precarious rings a little dull for the illustration. Still, here is where we make our descent on sunny afternoons into the relief of the lake's beckoning waves. It's the kind of jump that you have to steel yourself for mentally. The kind of jump for which you take deep breaths and count down, even as an adult-aged person.

The boulder itself is now shewn with beer cans, bottles, blankets, towels, discarded clothes, sun screen, and an inner tube. An ironic nod to water wings shaped like fishies. Or a non-ironic nod for those of us who are scared of the water. Despite the strong pull to be on an island surrounded on all sides by water and waves, a surprising amount of people here are actually afraid of the lake. And despite the swelling boat traffic and basic goal of getting drunk by most people who visit the island, very few people seem to drown here.

My friend Mary and I grabbed a bottle of wine one night and took off for the beach alone, a long walk from the trusty porch lamp that soaked the yard of our summer home when the dim moon couldn't shed enough light. It was a long walk made short by the wine we passed between us as we strode quick and sure in the dark. We reached and shore and stood silent like a prayer for a moment, taking in the dark expanse no one claimed but us. We floated and talked and marveled at how good the water felt on our limbs, how nice it felt to be so unselfconscious in the act of swimming. How lovely the lack of light. And then, thoroughly wrinkled, we wrapped our shivering bodies in towels and hitchhiked with some guys from the campsite going back to town, giggling in the back of a rusty pickup truck as we bounced our way back home.

It's nights like that which serve to snag like a splinter on my memory as I try to sand it down, simplify it as a time either bad or good. It catches just enough that neither quites fits- how could a place that produced such a perfect night be all bad?  Besides, it's a place I loved with reverence for a time. A home of sorts, if not forever. How could I ever simplify something so complex?

But Mary wasn't there that day for my test, and if she had, likely she would have been conducting it with me, along with the few other friends I've kept from my summers on the rock.

And then I remember the people I knew, their distance-muffled laughter and shouting above The Moon and Antarctica coming from portable speakers, blissfully unconcerned with the growing distance between my rhythmic movement and the boulder on which they stood. It was then that I realized the faces didn't matter so much as the human proximity. Aside from a few strong female bonds, roles could be filled by nearly anyone, so long as they were willing to read the lines with enough bravado. When I was gone, as I would be a few short weeks from that day, someone else would be fucking my boyfriend, coaxing drink orders out of windblown tourists, and drinking straight from the bottle on the boulder with my friends.

The realization made me feel so much smaller than treading water out in the middle of a constantly moving great lake ever did.

I'm a strong swimmer, so I never really had to test the allegiance of the people standing ashore to the drum of my pulse, a fact for which I'm sure, even in their ignorance, they're infinitely grateful.

As am I.

close to home

I've talked about Drama Island before.






Look like fun, eh?



I met a few of my very best friends and favorite people and former heart stomping, soul crushing, love there.


The island has been a big part of my life since I stepped foot onto that rock for the first time on a blustery day in 2007. Riding the ferry over for my interview as the vessel was tossed by wind and waves, my stomach was in knots- and not the sea-sick variety, what was I thinking? 

In the end, touring the streets and chatting over pizza that day with my future boss felt more like an invitation than a job interview- and that's what I saw it as, an invitation.


I decided on the three hour drive home that day I needed to take a leap, and that leap would be moving less than three months later to a tiny island where I knew nary a soul for the summer and serving/bar tending for tourists and boaters. No grand internship to enrich my future, just cold hard cash.


Hey, totally NOT LANDLOCKED, of course I was going.


I'd just had an academically kick-ass junior year in college. I finally had the rest of my academic undergrad mapped out. I was going to make it with two majors and a minor in four years. I was doing it. I was fucking rocking it out mosh style.


My personal life, not so grand. Actually, kind of in shambles- blah blah blah heart break blah blah blah bad decisions.


So I ran away to a place where no one knew me. Again.


That tiny island, its quirky little community, and the other lost souls wandering up to staff it for the summer picked me up, shook me around a bit,  and wrapped me in sunshine. And booze. Lots of booze.


Drama ran rampant, real world problems didn't actually make it all the way over on the ferry. I was living in a bubble world, albeit one I knew I'd have to cut ties with eventually in order to thrive in the real one.


Yet I went back for a second, equally booze filled, equally dramatic, equally sunshiny second summer. Despite now having a college degree and a 'real job' waiting. I probably should have left it at one epic summer, but the island beckoned me back and I just couldn't shake the part of me that was content inside a carefree, effortless, irresponsible summer.


As things started to turn sour in early August of my second summer, I left that place and most of those people and haven't really looked back since, I can't really let myself look back. On the rare occasion I let myself mull over my time on the island,  I usually feel physical pain at how much I miss it. Other times I'll shudder at the notion of ever going back to visit-even for the day.


'I'll never have a place like that or times exactly like that again, even if I went back now,' is what I always remind myself as I shake the idea out of my head.


When I think about the people that I knew who are still there, I feel a mixture of empathy and furious jealousy. But with so few people, many returning year after year, relationships and alliances change like tides and even the most healthy friendship can quickly turn to a toxic cesspool. Not to mention the social hierarchies in place, they'll tear you apart if you step out of your line.


But, you also meet people that change your life. And stick with you after the dog days are over. And become your best friends.


It's just a little gem I keep the pocket of my memory, sort of surreal at times. It's smooth and it feels good to rub on the memories. I trust the island, I know it. I've outgrown the tiny rock, but that doesn't mean I don't love that I once lived and flourished there.

I ran all its roads and drunkenly stumbled along its paths. I've cheered, beer in hand, at many a softball game on the single grassy diamond and dined and drank at just about every restaurant and bar. I knew the police, took shots with the locals, saw the underbelly and alleys after a busy tourist-filled weekend. I swam in the pools at every hotel, legally and illegally, and watched the sun set from dozens of points in the shore. I've laughed, I've cried, I've given parts of myself I'll never get back to that place. It was home for those summers and I treasure that.


And now an unspeakable crime has rocked that tiny community.


Over the weekend, a man my age was murdered and left under a tarp, behind a rental cottage in the woods. He was found by his family 18 hours after he was reported missing. Brutally killed.


Plenty of people every summer get alcohol poisoning (myself included on my 21st birthday). Some get into minor squabbles or suffer other alcohol related injuries such as twisted ankles or gnarly sunburn. It's a place where if you get caught peeing in public, they throw you in the drunk tank over night at the tiny jail. Plenty of people get busted up driving golf carts around when they shouldn't be operating a vehicle. It's not a place without its dark side.


But never, ever, has such an act of violence been committed there.


I can't remember once locking the door to my apartment, even on the busiest of weekends. You never know when a friend or acquaintance will be wrapping up their night and need a couch to crash on, after all.


On holiday weekends such as Labor Day, thousands of people flood in on ferries and private boats from near and far for little tropical vacations in the Midwest, making the island families who own restaurants and bars rich, but turning the place upside down with filth and drunken lack of respect or courtesy for those who make the island their home.


And even so, never once did I think such a thing could happen here.


Which just means, it can happen anywhere.


My thoughts are with my tiny once-home island community as they struggle to make sense of a killing in their midst- I'll always think of this special place like a dip in cool water, drenched in sunshine, with music like a pulse coming from every direction.

Xo Sara

triumphant return from the dredges of stress. thanks, part 5.

So, it's Wednesday. Which is Thank You day, but I've taken two weeks off at this point. I'm thinking it's kind of a 'Do it or desert it' kind of thing, so I'm going to do itttt.

Plus I've been kind of sad-sacky lately, aka convincing myself I'm more stressed out than I am and making things waaaaaaaay more complicated than they have to be. So, maybe gratitude and cheerful reflection are necessary elements at this point.

Ta da!:

Colly,

You are my sister. I know, I know, we both already have sisters. And our sisters are wonderful and I love all of them, yours and mine. But, saying you are my friend doesn't quite do it justice for me, so you are my sister, the sister that I was fortunate enough to find and lucky enough to hold onto even though life likes to keep us apart for seemingly endless spans of time. Thanks for holding onto your end of the string, always. I've got a firm grasp on my end.

The thing that's interesting to me is that we haven't killed each other yet. Two summers on Drama Island can burn to a crisp even the most regaled friendships, but somehow, some way, we've managed to forge something stronger, never even knowing each other prior to that first ferry ride. It's amazing to think back to the first moments and days of our friendship, because at this point I honestly don't even associate it with the Island anymore. But we did meet there, in a sun (and booze) drenched haze- and per usual, we're always the last two standing.

It was drunk love at first night. We both have the tendency to get a little carried away, take it just a touch further than it needs to go. Or miles further than it should go. We always look out for each other, though, so it works out. But really, we've probably legitimately saved each others' lives. Yeahhhhhh, obligatory mention of my twenty-first birthday. We'd known each other what, a month? Two? You got me in that pizza delivery cart and made that dude haul my ass back home and gave a little "You're on my shit list and you're THE ONLY ONE ON IT" speech to that creepy kid that bought me all those shots when you walked away to grab me some pizza and tried to take me home. True friend. Thanks for that, God knows someone had to help me. We'll leave it at that.

We've got so many good times,  and they warm me in my coldest moments. I can conjure in an instant memories of morning horoscopes with Ms. Bigar,  Oberons outdoors, a bicycle built for two, traipsing around Chicago with Mere that sunny summer weekend, and making every cab ride THE MOST FUN cab ride ever. We've stayed (and not stayed) in swanky hotels, cried in movie theaters, celebrated many a Halloween together, and recovered from hangovers while lounging with books, looking out at lakes and pools.

You're funny. SO funny. Effortlessly, not in a way that requires putting on an act or slapstick shticks. Just offhand sarcastic comments that get me and little things like slapping hand sanitizer into your hair when waking up five minutes before a shift starts. How did we ever survive rushing around and running out the door in our dirty uniforms after falling into bed at dawn almost every morning for two summers? God, it was fun. Thanks for always making me laugh, and for always having a retort to drunk assholes.

I never really understood why people would always come up to us and ask if we were sisters, but it's probably our mannerisms more than our looks. We've both got attitude, an easygoing looks. I've always been jealous though,  you've got such great features. Irish-white perfect skin and naturally dark hair. Lucky biotch. The awkward "Nope, not sisters, HALF BIRTHDAY TWINS!" always come next. All part of our appeal.

We're the best. 

We've had strained moments, too, which I look at as the tests life throws out to see how strong things really are. I still remember how fucking PISSED you were at me that time when your parents were visiting and you were showing them our apartment and you opened the door to show them our tiny little box of a bedroom with two twin beds, all the furniture touching and barely enough closet space to hang a quarter of our clothes up- and there I was with my total deadbeat of a boyfriend, fresh out of the shower and just lying around naked...on top of each other. I'm chuckling right now, thinking of the look on your face. Have I mentioned how sorry I am for that lately? Thank G your parents were still at the bottom of the stairs. I can also recall a certain time that you showed up to your server shift to relieve me after *ahem* spending the afternoon at the winery. That was tense, but how could I really be mad? I was more jealous than anything. Thanks for quickly getting over the time I yelled at you in the kitchen. Yeah, I know you remember the one. Intense. The bossman finally showed up and we were fine again, but both crying on the porch steps out back.  I probably could have done without raising my voice, sorry about that... but seriously, bus your shit. It's all funny to me now, and fun-even the conflicts.

I'm so proud of you for making Chicago work. I wish with ever fiber of my body that I could have.  And for chugging through a shitty hand of health cards like a champ- I know that wreck havoc on your spirit. And for being discerning with gentleman callers. Thanks so much Coll, for never leaving me hanging, or leaving me alone to find my own way home at the end of a debaucherous night out to go hook up with some random. We just don't do that to each other. 

Unspoken code. 

The world can be a tough place for us half-reformed party girls, and I'm so grateful to have you to reminisce with over the recklessness. The nights that carried over until morning, the trying to have a nice dinner out and ending up running into an old friend that led to shots that led to.... the usual. But also, occasional nights in to watch movies and just chill. We're starting to get that now, you know? 

Plus those hangovers get harder with age. 

We're more alike than I am with most of my other friends. I always feel at home, thanks. No matter how long it's been, we will catch up quick. It just works. It's great to have a friend that's just always in it to chill out. Not make a plan. Know it'll all work out. 

I'll maybe never be able to express my gratitude to you for being my friend, half-birthday twin, my honorary sister. But I am SO very grateful. You've got a piece of my heart I never want back. Keep it, I know it's in good hands. Thanks.

As you said, it's not summer until we drink an Oberon together or both of us are covered in hives. Welp, we've got the latter covered. It's summer and I miss you.

Yeah, we look good from behind.

 Love you. 

XO Sara

thanks. part 1.

Heyo, I've been writing like a lot of thank you notes to people near and far lately and I think I may make it a weekly feature. butttt, I HAVE tried that before... and obviously lacked the crucial motivation to keep it going, so we'll see. It could be lively. 


The people I'm writing to thank sometimes pop into my mind and I may still talk to them often, or may have cut ties them them many years ago- like the old friend below. 


Regardless, it just feels good to say what I have to say to them, whether or not they know it, so that's what I'm going to do. 


Here is letter numero uno:




DEEEEEEP BREATH. 

Hey, Girl. It's been a minute.

I know if I saw you today on the street our meeting would go one of two ways. If you are by yourself and we bump into each other in line at H&M, or knowing you, Express, you'd do that thing where you act like no time has passed and you still tell me all your secrets and let me ride your coat-tales. If you're not alone, more specifically, if you're in the presence of anyone that knows us both, you'll probably pretend you don't see me and do that mean sideways-glance-loud-conversation thing that people of your social confidence do to make people like me feel small. I don't feel small often, but you could always take me there. I know now that even if I got the first version you'd probably just pump me for tiny scraps of useful/relevant/to your benefit information and then hang me out to dry the way you always used to.

But really, I promise, this letter isn't to cut you down. It may not appear this way, but I'm actually trying to thank you. Show gratitude, that's what I'm trying to do here.

You see, I learned a lot from you. A lot about people and a lot about myself. I'm very thankful for that.

So first of all, thanks for letting me into your world for a while. You seemed so glamorous in a way, so popular and charismatic. My own real-life Samantha, so worldly and outspoken about everything from your sexual exploits to everyone else's underbelly. Our flingfriendship was brief, under a year, but fairly deep. You were funny and confident and so comfortable with farting in public and always saying things like "God, I'm so good-looking," only half-jokingly. I loved that. I loved having a friend so strong and openly confident with herself, it was mesmerizing. Thanks for oozing self-confidence when it seemed like everything around me was insisting that no woman could possibly be good enough as-is. You were. I was. That felt good. Thank you, truly.

It took me a while to realize that you needed me at that time, too. You never made it seem that way. But you were always broke, your parents aren't worth a damn, and you didn't know anyone in the city where you'd moved and I happened to live. I still don't know why you moved there after the summer, other than someone offered you a free couch for three weeks that turned into two months. Really, it took me a while to see you for yourself and I'm partially to blame for getting scammed, I suppose. I didn't see at first that you were just trying to survive, that a person like you still gets lied to, cheated on, and deserted. All the people that meant the most to you were always letting you down and you were scrappy out of necessity. I'm not scrappy out of necessity, I do it to get what I want; maybe you do it simply to get what you need.

And you always seemed to have what you needed, but it must have felt precarious, sleeping on my couch for three months, living with your ex-boyfriend's parents the next six, crashing in wherever someone willing would take you- until the siren's summer song of the island brought us all back up for another go. It never occurred to me that you didn't like living that way, sliding in wherever you saw an opening. I thought you were an opportunist- turns out you're probably just a survivalist.

Thanks, though, girl for the shiney moments. We've got a fair amount. You'd take me to trendy places and I'd get polished and I'd take you to the second-hand shops so you could learn the joys of finding a perfectly-worn tee or that just-broken-in pair of Citizens at like a third of the cost. Thanks for helping me get (both) of my two extra jobs that year, I needed that money to live the way I like, and not the way you had to.

I look back fondly on nights where we'd drink bottles of wine and sit on the front porch and just talk. I was 21, and used to getting belligerent and stumbling home from parties by myself. It was good, better, than doing that. I don't miss you going crazy and logging into your ex's facebook every other night and getting hysterical, because I don't understand that way of coping. But I don't mind being the person you talked to about the way life had jarred you and hurt you. I've never told anyone your secrets. I know it meant something for you, even if it seems small and far away now.  You never would have taken a rando to your mother's run-down and filthy house. or your old job. The one where you'd had a fling with the married boss. You looked so small in those places. It was one of the saddest things I'd ever seen, seeing where you came from. I think I started realizing then that your mean was so much deeper in you than I'd ever go. Thanks for showing me that before I got caught in a web I couldn't walk away from, or more aptly, be forced from.

I never tried to come back or salvage any of our friendship and it's one of the decisions in my life that I value most, and I'm grateful you didn't try to keep luring me back in. I didn't need the hurt. You'll always be stuck in that sticky web of toxic people and I get to keep moving. So long as you're a part of that crowd, you and all of them will be jockeying for position, temporary alliances and quick fixes to deep-rooted issues. Thanks for showing me the way things really work, and for letting me walk away relatively unscathed. For as many times as my non-intentioned private words with you were twisted and passed on to less understanding ears.

 I don't hate you.

I don't anything you, except thank you, I guess.

You built me up in a way that not even could you could tear down.

Thanks, dear, for teaching me that I don't like stirring the rumor mill. Thanks for showing me that not all friendships are healthy, but that doesn't mean you can't grow as an individual from their rubble. I have.

I won't see you around. In fact, I can say with relative confidence that our paths will likely never cross again. You're probably still bartending somewhere in the city you fled back to and well, I like to avoid it if it all possible. Different strokes. It is funny, though, because I didn't take a lot away from the island where we met, but the few friendships I've kept from there are full of laughter and genuine caring- and none of us choose to keep in contact with you or your once-enticing circle of sharks. 

Thanks for everything, I really, truly, wish you the best. You always figure out a way to get it.

 

But I know the truth.

XO Sara

the way we were.

Mary, Mary, Mary.

She's the lady I can't seem to get off my mind, the long-lost friend from yesterday.

There are a precious few people I've met in my life who require absolutely zero discerning self-adjustment in the delightfully uninhibited category. As it sometimes is with important people in my life, I met Mary at the absolute. perfect. time. Just when I needed her. Everything came easily.

We met on Drama Island, Summer #1.

It looks like it wouldn't destroy your life and self-worth, but it does.

Someone I knew up on Drama Island once said in a drunken ramble that everyone who works up there during the summer is running away from something, and I think that's probably true. It works well for people like me, because it gives you the absolute best and absolute worst times of your life, and I SUCK at moderation. What was I running away from? That's perfect material for another post, at a later time.

Mary and I were dating/trying to score free meals off of/getting drunk and making out with two guys who happened to be best friends. We got thrown together and the guys eventually got thrown to the side. They were losers, we were ARE much better off.

In a resounding blast that's blurred with late night lake swims, fountains of vod, aimless road trips, and the ability to successfully create a two-person scene, Mary and I grew thisclose. Almost instantly. She kept me sane and encouraged me to get a little crazy. I never felt self conscious or bad-weird about myself with Mary. She was unabashedly non-domestic, stylistically fabulous, occasionally socially awkward, and exceptionally smart. The Betty to my Veronica.

After that first summer and the following year and the next Summer for Drama Island: Round Two,  Mary and I were thick as theives. She was genuinely my most honest and reliable sounding board at that time in my life, she always made herself available. When we weren't geographically close, we'd send greeting cards like we owned stock in Hallmark. I graduated from college, when she still had a year left. She always had something to laugh about or a reason we should slam back a few more shots, or the time to get in her car in the middle of the night to drive down to hell-Kentucky where I was working, to find me wedged between the toilet and bathtub of my hotel room, in my underwear, just staring off into space with my body all clenched up in my own arms, to force me to take a pregnancy test (NEG, WHEW) after a particularly reckless and terrible decision following the most henious post-breakup period of my life.

She was my friend. A great friend. We were there for each other. We made each other shine and helped buff out the dents and dings that life had thrown. Stories were shared and plentiful. The hard to express, less-happy moments, of the first sting of childhood disappointment and even her fear of how a future love might propose.

"Mary, Marry me?"

"Marry me, Mary!"

Bahahaha.

Every time we saw each other, we ended up at Bob Evans the next morning to suss it all out. From our issues with our mothers, to how godawfulterrible Bride Wars was, and how much our credit cards couldn't handle another trip to Nordstrom-  and we always ordered the same thing. I could still order for her: Egg white omelet with spinach, tomatos, and mushrooms. Dry wheat toast. Coffee, side of skim milk. Me: Omelet with bacon and as much cheese as you can give me. With a side of Bacon. Sour dough toast, extra butter. She is slightly more health-conscious. After the meal, whomever's turn it was to pay would buy a Pez dispenser and a rock candy. Pez for her, rock candy for me. Little traditions popped out of everything.

Until it started breaking down, little by little.

When two people grow to trust and let each other in, and then depend on each other so quickly, it's easy to miss the blurry line between 'support system' and 'enabler.' It's already a fairly fine line, in my opinion. Mary and I both went through rough stuff. Typically boy drama, post college, Drama Islands wrecking our sense of reality, normal, growing-up kind of stuff.

And we enabled each other's misery.

It's hard for me to say that because it was almost impossible for me to see when I was in it. We supported each other in the only way we knew how- it usually involved reassuring the other one that she was justified in her choices, like drinking an entire bottle of wine while reading every fbook message correspondance between she/me and the Worst Ex in History. We both had them. Calls became less frequent. We had a hard time making it out to see each other. Stuff gets in the way. I let it. She let it. I grew tired of hearing her bitch about the people closest to her and worried she was venting about me behind my back. She grew tired of my constant boy drama and busted self-confidence.

I think becoming best friends with a person virtually overnight takes its toll sometimes- even someone as kindred as Mary was to me-  Not that you grow tired of the person or the friendship, but the rest of your life eventually catches up and refuses to be ignored. That happened.

We were still close, but also incredibly stressed and caught up in the bullshit of everyday living and growing up. Things were strained. Mary went back against my protests for Drama Island: Round three. In a weird turn of events we both ended up living in Chicago in the Fall of 2009. I was coming off a job-loss and she was moving in with her boyfriend who was in grad school there. I was thrilled.

And then we didn't see each other.

Or talk.

The last time I saw her was Halloween of that year. I had incredible energy that night, I remember it clearly. As I was getting my costume together and preparing for a night on the town with a group of my favorite people, I felt better than I had in such a long time. I looked good, I knew it. Walking around I had that bounce that comes after great sex or an exceedingly good hair day. I was ready to take on the world head-first.

Mary and her beau showed up two hours later than expected and left after an hour, something about train schedules.

I was pissed and I let her know. Of course I did it tastefully, in front of a group of people on the street, sloppily drunk and dressed as a gypsy flower-child. I always like to keep it classy. I may have also taken that chance to let her know that I felt she'd been neglecting our friendship and I felt she was constantly fixating on the negative and I was willing to help her find solutions and take action, but I would no longer stew with her about things she'd done nothing to fix.

END SCENE!

I proceeded to get super drunk and have a great time after she left.

And then I got a facebook message from her a few days later. I don't even really remember what it said, although I can recall one line VERY clearly.

"I need this to be a low-maintenance friendship."

Um, what? hubbbbbababababababa? I'm sitting on the couch of my fun and adorable Chicago city apartment, pulling out my hair. Suddenly I itch. All over. My hair is still wet from the shower. I had the sudden need to go stretch my legs, get out, walk away from what I'm reading.

CONFUSION.

This was NOT how we rolled. I was blindsided by this, so I did what any mature adult woman would in that situation. I screamed "THAT BITCH!" and defriended her on facebook. And then I waited for her to call me.

Only she never did.

And neither did I.

Did I mention that we're both unbudgibly stubborn? Yes, I'm fully aware that I just made up that word. Regardless, we're both STUPID stubborn. We don't budge.

And so I guess we both moved on with our lives because we had to, but I still feel guilty, that pang when I think about a friendship that should have been fought for. That's my most failed friendship and perhaps my biggest blunder.

I guess I've got a serious question looming when I consider contacting her to make amends. We met at exactly the right time, the chemistry was just there. Now though, it's been a year and a half since we last spoke. She's gone through MAJOR changes from what I've heard. So have I.  I just don't know if lightning can strike twice in the same place on this one.

But, one can hope, because we had one hell of a time the first go-around.



Marebear and Sarebear: Vacation 2009. We have fantastic leg genes. My teeth are not always this gigantic.  



XO Sare