January 17

This is one of my favorite people. (The blonde, not me. I mean, I have my good qualities and all, but yeah. No. Not that brand of vain.) I've referenced Kathy a few times before, mostly in vague terms because she has this genuine disdain for all-things blog and I try not to torment people I like with public expressions of sticky sentiment. But given that we lunched for my birthday today and she's moving far (far) away in a few weeks and she's had a really big impact on me over the past few years, now seemed like a good time to break that rule. So here goes.

I think I lost a piece of myself when Logan died. After the initial pain of that trauma dulled, I didn't feel much of anything for quite a long while; longer than I'd like to admit. It was so much easier --and definitively safer-- to remain detached (pleasant, friendly, transparent --because goodness knows, I'll talk about anything even to this day!-- and kind, sure, but also detached) than to chance the potential for more heartbreak by actually caring about anything or anyone. That probably sounds bad, but it's how I coped, and I'm guessing that's not uncommon.

The spring of 2016 rolled around and ushered in a new season of baseball for Isaac and a whole new crop of people to get to know. One of those people was Taylor. Kathy was another. I think our first actual interaction was at a Starbucks (because of course it was). Then there were planned coffee meet-ups and strings of text messages and some of the most honest conversations I'd had in years about just about everything: politics, Hollyweird, marriage, family, faith, loss. And there was the humor. Oh, the humor. We had this natural synergy and for the first time in quite a long while, it felt like the sun came out in my world. And I thanked God every single day for sending me someone who wanted to know me --the actual me, not the masked version who chattered on sans emotion-- and who understood my sense of humor and that I could be mercurial but didn't hold it against me and busted my chops when they probably needed a good busting and didn't hold back kind words when they were warranted (and, quite often, needed). And who was willing to take off her own mask and be real with me, too. And I thanked God that the ice had begun to melt and I found myself actually able to care again.

It hasn't always been sunny; we're different people (think eggshell beige versus purple glitter) and there have been tough patches to navigate. But I do believe that God puts specific people in our lives at specific times to fill our hearts with happy and to push us to more fully become who we're intended to be. And she's one of those people for me. And for that, I am --and always will be-- thankful. And though I'm not keen on the upcoming separation, what's a few thousand miles between good friends?