It's Like a Really Good One

If you've known me for any length of time you have definitely heard this story before, but it's like a really good one. When I was a single mom working at Group Health I had no life. Intentionally. My mom watched my daughter while I was at work and coming home to those two every evening was the perfect end to any day. Often my mom would stay for dinner (well, she would cook dinner for us at my apartment) or we would head over to her house so my dad could get some time in with his favorite granddaughter! One day a coworker invited me to come to dinner at her house. I said yes to be polite but when I got home I told my mom I was not going. I didn't know her well and I was sure I had no need for friends. Plus, I was still at the stage of my life where I didn't think anyone liked me. My mom felt differently. She thought it would be good for me to get out of the house to somewhere besides work and possibly make a new friend. We argued about it for awhile until she basically forced me to go. So I loaded my daughter up and went to the stranger danger house for dinner. I was my typical awkward self and she was loud, bossy and funny! It wasn't a match made in heaven but it worked. After dinner I hung out with her and her family as we all got to know each other a little better. My daughter was about 6 months old at the time and not crawling yet so my coworker decided to help her with that. Seemed like a great idea until she accidentally made her bonk her little head on the coffee table. We all laughed, no one got hurt and crawling still didn't happen. I survived the night and was glad I went, thanks mom. The next time I went over they were having a bbq and had invited other people from work. Her husband had set up a volleyball net in the backyard and I bragged about being on the volleyball team in high school. I was trying to make friends here! When it was time to play her husband picked me first to be on his team. Yay me! I'm sure he thought this was his in for the win but the joke was on him the first time that volleyball came near me and I ducked and ran from it. I guess I had forgot to mention that I was scared of the ball and after many days sitting on the sidelines during high school volleyball I eventually quit the team and found other things to do after school to kill time so I didn't have to tell my parents I had quit. Her husband was not impressed but lucky for him we have had the opportunity to tell that story hundreds of times! He tells it way better than me!

Here's the part of the story you all know too well - my mom died. It was sudden and unexpected but I knew in my gut this was the reason she forced me to go to that coworkers house that night just a few short months before. My mom had silently felt unwell for months and knew I was going to need someone special in my life when she passed. I can tell you without a single doubt she picked the right girl. I called this coworker obsessively that day until she finally answered. I needed to talk to her. She was the one. Hand picked by my favorite person in the world. Once I finally reached her and told her the news I found out the reason she hadn't answered the phone all the other times I called was because her mom was in town visiting. A sign sent from my mom to reassure me this was my person. I told her to hug her mom more than usual and hug her once for me too. Then, like everyone else in my life, I tried to shut her out. But this bossy bitch wasn't having anything to do with that. She showed up...every single day. When I didn't come to work, she left work to drag me out of bed, taking my daughter to daycare while I got ready and getting me to work. On the days I lost my shit and couldn't pull myself together enough to get home from work I drove straight to her house. I wouldn't have to say a word. Her husband would get in his car to go pick up my daughter and bring her to me. My coworker, who had quickly morphed into my life saving best friend, would help me pull myself together. Little by little helping me return to what was now my new normal. We became a family unit, as dysfunctional as it may have been at times. We made it work. And then the fun began. We became true soul mates, forming a friendship that may have started from tragedy but became our own story. We started making memories. We spoke our own language. We laughed, a lot! She cooked because I didn't. There was tequila, lots of tequila. In public people thought we were sister wives, we owned it. She wanted to kill me, just once, but that's a story for another day. We were inseparable. As life always does, though, things changed. We moved away from each other then back close to each other and then away from each other a few times. What didn't change was our unbreakable connection. We continue to laugh, make memories and spend as much time together as possible. There's less tequila but I learned to cook! We still speak our own language but somehow she gets made fun of for it more than I do. She's still bossy and I'm still awkwardly Shana but we're both really funny. It's a forever friendship like no other. Unique. Genuine. Real. We are the perfect example of everything happens for a reason. And our story is like a really good one!

This is us... THEN AND NOW!