Warm Fuzzies

Into each of our lives fall some people who are very special.  In almost an instant, we know who those people are.  In the "shoulds" of the world, we "should" hold those people very close and never, ever let go. Perhaps it is the vantage point of having crossed more than a few birthdays that gives me that wisdom.  It should be a no-brainer, but apparently, for me, it wasn't.

Although my college roommate is probably my closest friend in the world, and the one that I have hung onto most closely over the years, there were many of calendars that came and went without more than a phone conversation. Whenever we have had a rendezvous, it was always like we'd just dropped off the day before, but they just didn't happen often enough.  Last fall we had the opportunity to spend a few days together, and I realized that we should really make a point to spend more time together.

Through the miracle of modern technology, we've been walking and talking together--a joint effort to exercise regularly, as well as stay connected.  We are doing it through our smartphones.  We both walk in different states, but do so while talking to each other.  I've been savoring those work-outs. Last week I scheduled to visit her again in the late spring.  I am really looking forward to it.

At the end of this month, I will spend time with one of those special people. When we visit and try to explain to others why we are such good friends, it makes no sense.  Just something clicked in the beginning and we're fast friends.  The fact that she has brought to beautiful little girls into the world that I adore is just a bonus.

I am getting a second chance at another one of those very special relationships.  I can't tell you exactly when we drifted apart, but the how is that I let my life get too busy for people who were very special to me.  It wasn't a conscious decision.  I was too busy for a call or too busy to plan a visit. From their perspective, I can imagine it might have seemed that when I got married and moved to another town that I had moved beyond the relationship.  That really wasn't true at all.

Before I knew it, 20 years had passed...then more.  I wanted to reach out but really agonized about what to say that would make 20 years of non-communication seem OK, because there was nothing about it that was OK.  A year or two ago I made the decision that there was no way I could make it OK, and if I wanted to see these people again, I had to swallow my pride, reach out, and simply say I was sorry. I thought it was better to write. I got no response.  Considering that I hadn't been communicating all that time, that seemed reasonable.

When the right season came, I sent a Christmas card. Silence. I'd long since forgotten birthdays. I waited hopefully but not expectedly.

A few months ago, I received a Facebook friend request.  I accepted.  I really don't do much with Facebook, but this was a way to reestablish contact.  Over a few months of sporadic Facebook communications, I discovered we still had the same things in common that had first brought us together.

Yesterday, she sent out a post of a picture of her husband, also a close friend, marking a landmark birthday with their youngest granddaughter on his lap.  I responded. Tonight we talked for an hour. Just as with the roommate, it was like we'd seen each other yesterday.  At the end of the conversation was the most sincere "We love you!" that I can imagine.  I teared up.  How could I have drifted so far from this important relationship?

I am not sure how it happened, but as I write this, I am still full of warm fuzzies. I am also savoring the wisdom to hang on for dear life to people that are very special.  In the end, the relationships we have are really all we have.

Postal Time Travel

We are now down to two days until Christmas, and Postal Magic arrived in my mailbox today.  My mailbox is more appropriately sized for the volume of snail mail that we got two or three decades ago, so most days the single catalog or bill that I receive is lost in the space.

But, today...today...was a bonanza.  Most of my friends used the Saturday before Christmas to mail cards, and my mailbox was full today.  I couldn't even wait until I got to my apartment to start opening the cards.  One was from a colleague who retired 13 months ago: it reminded me how much I'd loved working with her.  I am also grateful to still have her in my life.  Another was from a colleague on a grueling work project five years ago.  If misery loves company, that is how we bonded. We laughed and commiserated over dinner and a glass of wine many evenings. I've moved to other employment, but we are still friends. 

Still another card came from a friend of almost 30 years.  As I opened it, I remembered cross-country skiing at Christmas in the mountains together 25 years ago. A few days ago, a card came from my college roommate from even longer ago. With it came memories of both of our weddings, one right before Christmas and the other in January.

I've written before about the powerful ability we have as human beings to "time travel"--to really be in another time and place through our memories.  I receive a few e-cards, but they don't match the magic of a card with a handwritten note that initiates time travel.  This evening after traveling over the years and the good times with my friends in my memories, it occurred to me how very important it is to be truly present to this year's celebrations for today I am making the memories that will fall out of cards 20 years in the future.

Warmth

Washington is finally experiencing some serious fall weather with temperatures predicted into the 30s tonight.  A serious chill brought shivers to my jaw as I walked to dinner in the city this evening. Yet, I am warm--warm in a way that, regrettably, I have rarely been in recent past. 

I've just spent three hours with special friends.  We've been friends since college, and that was more than a few years ago. It has probably been over three years since two of us were together, and more likely a dozen since all of us were together.  We did the usual catching up on our day-to-day lives, shared stories of health challenges, and talked about what we thought the next chapter in our lives would be. They got a brief tour of my new home. It was a fun evening.

Sometime early in the evening, I realized that I had been wrong in this blog yesterday.  I can let love in.  I can feel that warm vibration in my heart with other humans.  I felt it tonight.  It was wonderful, and I want to let more of love into my life.  What could be more important?

If the world works like I am pretty sure it is supposed to, this heart-to-heart warmth should be normal all the time.  People connecting to people connecting to people in a ribbon of love that connects the whole world.  I've advocated for it. I've believed it could be.  I've even talked about how important it is that those of us who want to change humankind focus on staying in that spot until we build critical mass to global transformation.  I couldn't quite get there myself.  Or maybe I could at some time in the past, but not yesterday or the day before or the day before that.

At what point between two days ago and several decades ago did I lose the ability to let love in? Does it matter?  What really matters is that today--this one miraculous day--my heart opened.  I really believe that if I can do that tomorrow, the day after that, and 100 days after that, we can change the world.  I am confident that is why I am here in this world.  I am pretty sure that is why we are all here.  Seems like changing the world is pretty easy...as soon as the heart creaks open to just one person. I think the first is the hardest.  Tomorrow, I will open again.

Coming Together in Warmth

Yesterday I wrote about the special kind of friends with whom we can be open about our hopes and fears, and they will sit with us in total acceptance.  Today I want to write about other kinds of friends.  In a few minutes I will leave to have brunch with several women with whom I share an occasional lunch, dinner, and today brunch.  One is a current work colleague, but sadly most are now former colleagues. 

The occasion for today's celebration is a visit by one who moved back to her native state of California, and most of us haven't seen her for 15 months.  Among us there will be warmth, joy, and laughter. There will be curiosity about what has been going on in our lives. There will be concern and support. Perhaps mostly, there will be connection born of a time and place when we collaborated together on a common mission: to make life at our agency better for the people work there. 

In Leading from the Heart I wrote about the experience of people coming together every day to produce a newspaper, the business in which I spent 10 years of my career.  I think it matters not whether it is a federal agency or the newspaper business or any one of 22 other industries in which I have worked over the years; what matters is the magic that happens when a group of people share a mission.  Together we are more than the sum of our parts. We are able to accomplish something in community that the same people working alone could not accomplish.  It connects us.

Over the years, I have made friends at many of the career stops I've made along the way.  There is still something about that magic that continues to connect us 20-30 years later.  Today I look forward to coming together in warmth with a special group and sharing our connection.