This one has been so hard for me to hit the “publish” button on. I think because its so personal to me and because I am afraid that the words I write will never be adequate enough. However, after chickening out last night and posting about my friend’s accidental nudity instead, I am finally pulling the trigger.
This weekend is my sweet momma’s birthday. Lately, I’ve been thinking about how blessed I am to have a mom like her. I think it all started when I came across a photo from a family vacation we took a few years ago. At the time I had just been diagnosed with diabetes and was a total brat. I didn’t realize it until a lot later, but she was personally going through some deep struggles at the time. But that’s the thing about my mom, we had a great vacation and she loved me through all my unnecessary brattyness, even though her own life wasn’t peachy at the time.
As I look back over the years of my life, I can truly see the love of God through my mother’s love for us. I have never met someone so willing to put others before herself. As I am typing this, she is went and bought a family McDonald’s and filled up their gas tank. My mom, who never missed a field trip, cheerleading competition, doctor’s appointment (she still wants to come with me to see my endocrinologist, we all have to leave the nest sometime though, mom. Ha!) I used to think this is just what mothers do for their kids. As I’ve grown older and met people outside of my small little bubble, I realize that is not the case. I used to think that maybe she just has the sweetest personality and that’s why she loves like she does. And don’t get me wrong, she is the sweetest, but what I’ve realized in the past few years is that she has no concept of loving others in any way different than the way Jesus loves her.
She is remarkable. She is a lover and distributor of grace, maker of cheesy chicken casserole, author of corny jokes, homecoming queen, and reflector of Jesus. I am so thankful that has God has opened my eyes, on this side of eternity, to allow me to see how truly blessed I am to have her as a mother. I am lucky to spend the rest of my earthly days thanking God for this great blessing and serving her.
Also, she’s had to endure a lifetime of hearing that I look just like my dad. Clearly, we were little bowl cut twins.
If I am a tenth of the Christian, wife, mother, friend, worker, and woman she is (or even get a tenth of her metabolism), I will have succeeded in my time on earth. Happy Birthday, Momma!
Also, if she weren’t already bordering on sainthood. She chaperoned three boy crazy 16 year old girls on a cross country road trip with hundreds of other high schoolers (aka lots of boys). Love her brave heart.
I’ve been hearing about this book “Nobody’s Cuter Than You” by Melanie Shankle for a solid month now and being the excellent social car rider that I am, I downloaded it right before we took off to my grandma’s for Mother’s Day. So long story short, the book is a memoir about the author’s friendships. I loved this book. I loved this author (I could write a whole other post on how much I loved this woman and I probably will. We are soul sisters). I loved her so much I downloaded her other two books and finished them on the ride home, see social car rider. PS BUY THIS BOOK http://www.amazon.com/Nobodys-Cuter-than-You-Friendship/dp/1414397488
So coming off the euphoria that is finishing “Nobody’s Cuter Than You” coupled with my law school BFF coming in town in a few weeks and I’m still riding the whole “I’m not dating for a year, my girl friends are my soul sisters” wave, I started to think about my favorite moments of friendship. The cherry on top of this little friendship sundae I was making myself was hearing “Seasons of Love” on my playlist this morning….PAUSE…because if you aren’t aware, Seasons of Love is a song from the musical Rent. While Rent has been around for a while, the movie version of the musical was released the Fall of my freshmen year of college and y’all my sorority sisters and I lost our minds. Seasons of Love was blaring from every stereo ( because yes, we still had stereos then) in the Kappa Delta residence. So naturally, we did the only thing sorority girls know how to do when they just LOVE something….we choreographed a dance to the song and performed it at Greek Sing the next year (1st place baby!) Seasons of Love gets me every time…well, that and My Humps by the Black Eyed Peas (clearly, I know good music when I hear it).
“But the truth is, we need our friends. I mean, we need Jesus to truly complete us, but we absolutely need our girl friends, because no man wants to listen to all the words we have to say in the course of a day.”—Melanie Shankle “Nobody’s Cuter Than You”
Because ain’t that the truth. Especially if you’re friends with me because I say a lot of words. Looking back over my most significant friendships from the past 10 years, it isn’t always the big profound moments I remember, but the small ones that made me laugh till I cry. Like, that time my law school bestie Britney and I stopped in the middle of our early morning studying session to do this dance to Coolio’s 1,2,3,4…you know the one where you grabbed your partners hand and dropped to the floor, then switched hands…I am embarrassed to say that I attempted to google said dance in order to insert a clip, but shockingly google was unable to produce the results I wanted when I searched “coolio 1,2,3,4 partner hand grab dance” So thank you for failing me google.
We do more than dance to Coolio in the living room together, we do Nascar as well
Or the time my sister from another mister, Mrs. Megan Bosse Miller, threw me the best birthday party of my life for my 25th birthday. Note to the future man I will date, birthdays are a big deal for me. They probably shouldn’t be because I’m an adult and all, but they are. So my soul sister knew that studying for the bar was sucking all the fun right out of me, so she threw me a huge pool party complete with a water slide and cowboy boot cake. Because ya know what, that’s what awesome friends do. Fast forward two years and during my 27th birthday, aka the worst week of my life, my sweet friend knowing how important birthdays are to me, volunteered to plan whatever fun thing I felt like doing. Me in all of my self-pity glory wanted to be a social hermit and only have dinner with her, at Chuy’s of course. So off we went, in yoga pants, pretty sure neither of us were wearing real bras, and we rang in my 27th year of life (in her defense, she was pregnant and I was just putting forth my best Eeyore impression) with mass amounts of chips and boom boom sauce.
This photo is actually 10 years old. My heart.
Or the time I asked to borrow a black dress from my newish (at the time) friend Claire for a bachelorette party and she so graciously dropped me off 20 black dresses. And thus began the love affair that adult women dream of, we have open wardrobes : ) We have added to this wardrobe love affair by being each other’s go-to “you are the prettiest friend I know” encourager whenever we are having a fat day, gross hair day, PMS day, bad work day, or any Monday.
Our “You are the prettiest friend I know” friendship in one pretty picture 🙂
And I can go on and on and on about my friends. I could tell you about the time I was in the hospital with what turned out to be adult mono and I’d love to tell you I got it from kissing some super hot guy, but the odds are I got it from a sketchy Chinese buffet I had eaten at the week before. But the source didn’t stop my sweet friend Bijaya from sending me flowers anyways.
Because love is sending your friend mono flowers
I really could tell you each of our individual love stories. Because I remember the exact moment I knew that each of these women in addition to a few others not listed (Kristian, you are def. my people) became my people. A story of all the times they showed up for me in little ways and big ways. Because friendship is really all about showing up….whatever that looks like in each other’s lives….and I could go on and on about all of my sweet friends and the kindness and big love they’ve shown me over the years…but then I’d have to write a book and since Melanie Shankle has already beat me to the punch, I’ll leave it at a post.
And also, if texting about pizza and hair removal in the same message isn’t real friendship. Well ladies, I don’t know what is.
Running on Faith And Sugar 