It’s been a few weeks, not A week, I know, but I’ve had good reason! I needed some time to process because a thing has happened. (and no, to all you well-wishers and dreamers, I AM NOT PREGNANT).

Have you ever owned a sweater that hugged you in just the right way? It gave you warmth when you were cold. It gave you comfort when you were sad or lonely. It gave you confidence when you were insecure and overwhelmed. It was your happy place.

Then one day, the close friend who gave you the sweater asks to borrow it. They won’t have it for long. They promise to have it back to you in no time. Reluctantly, you agree. I mean, they gave you the sweater after all…

Time goes by and you have had yet to receive your sweater. You miss it, but know that it’s safely in the hands of your trusted friend. It will come back to you soon.

More time goes by and you miss it so much. You finally ask your friend how your favorite sweater in the whole wide world is doing because life just isn’t the same without it. You want to know when your happy place is coming home. Your friend promises you’ll have it back soon.

Again, more time goes by. You inquire about your sweater once more as your patience is growing rather thin. Weirdly, your friend deflects, speaks in vagaries and about other sweaters they think you might adore as much as the one they borrowed from you. Essentially, you don’t find the answer you seek.

The next thing you know, sweater season is half way through and you haven’t had an opportunity to enjoy your happy place once. It’s bullshit. You call out your “friend”. You demand answers. You want your favorite sweater back and you want it now.

It is finally back in your arms, but instead of your favorite sweater returned in its pristine condition, the threads are unravelling, the body’s been stretched, and the yarn’s been worn bare. The entire sweater is coming apart at the seams. This is not your sweater. This is not your happy place. You don’t even recognize what you’re “friend” has given you. You want to believe it can be salvaged, but there’s just no way. THIS is a pile of shit masquerading as your favorite sweater. You won’t wear shit. Shit is not your happy place.

THIS is what the Arrow writers have done with my favorite show. Don’t trust people with your favorite sweater.

I have a drink every Friday, no matter where I am or what I’m doing, as a toast to two irreplaceable human beings in my life. We may not always get to chat on the phone or even hang out now and again because the laws of life have dictated we remain many hundreds of miles apart, yet that doesn’t negate nor dictate our closeness and fondness and trust and belief in one another – essentially, our friendship.

We started a bond too many years ago to count that is a living breathing thing. It has ups and downs and gaps and harmonies, but never absences. Having that drink and sharing it with them, wherever they are, reminds me of that.  52 drinks celebrating births, mourning loved ones, battling flu, making fun of one another, making fun with one another, playing Fantasy Football, traveling the states, sharing career frustrations, dealing with family matters, building things, moving out and moving on… 52 drinks that I’ve had with my friends and I wouldn’t trade a one of them for the world.

So far, we’ve continued our pact, toasting to one another’s day, accomplishments, or just each other. It’s an appreciation of our history, a celebration of our present and a hope for our future. Missing you guys terribly, but loving you all the same – to Chelle and Darewood — Happy Festive Friday, my dears!

My 52 moments shared with Chelle and Darewood this last year.

I wasn’t “home” for the happiest of situations.  I was home because Joe had passed away. Ruth and Joe are Chelle’s parents. Those of you who read my blog regularly know Chelle’s my best friend in this world.

That’s us. Two besties playing it bad ass at Ruth’s and Joe’s. That’s how we rolled. Still do.

Ruth and Joe were like second parents to me. They were ridiculously supportive in my formative years and beyond. They welcomed me and all of Chelle’s friends into their home asking us to make it our own.  And we did.

The house is down a long gravel lane set back from a country road (for those of you not from these parts – everything is off of a country road). The moment I pulled in, this time in my Acadia in lieu of the old high school Ford Taurus Sedan, I still peeled down the drive like I always did leaving a cloud of white dust in my wake. I remember every time he saw me do it, Joe would say, “There’s Lib. Driving like a bat out of hell.” And yet he still trusted his daughter’s life in my hands as we’d take off for our next big adventure to parts unknown. Ok. They were always known; we were teenagers. So maybe to like the Friday night football game?

Anyway.

I stayed at their house for one night while I was up there. Just walking through the front door brought so many memories rushing back . Maybe some of the furniture had changed, but the feelings the house evoked hadn’t changed at all. I was left alone in it for a little bit, locking things up before the viewing that day.  I took the opportunity to wander around, not knowing when I’d be there again, and smiling as certain moments from events past sprang to mind (For the record, Ruth, I was totally not creeping in your house—  just wandering and reminiscing, NOT CREEPING. I promise!).

Apparently some furniture had stayed the same. I found one of the old couches we used at every get-together. I was surprised we hadn’t completely destroyed it all those years ago.

One of many goofy photo ops on Famous Couch

Just another case in point.

It was still sitting upstairs in the loft. That’s where we would always be – upstairs in the loft. We’d play euchre. We’d watch movies. We’d enjoyed games like Truth or Dare.

A little Twister here and there.

We had slumber parties.

Chelle does have pants on. I swear …???

Superbowl parties. Dinner parties.

Typical bunch of misfits having dinner at the house.

We did makeup and hair…

After my brief stroll down memory lane (in a not creepy way remember), I had stepped outside to let the dogs do their business (one was Chelle’s and one was Ruth’s and Joe’s) . I was promised neither one would run away. Apparently that rule only applies when squirrels aren’t in the picture as I watched, completely mortified, as Ruth’s and Joe’s little sweetheart tore off for one of the speedy rodents across the property towards the open field.  So there I was, running over the lawn in sharp high heels, screaming at the top of my lungs in 25 degree temps, trying to stop him when suddenly all of the nights we spent playing capture the flag hit me, too. We’d don black clothes and divvy up into two teams. We’d run covert ops through the woods and over the grassy knolls with only the moonlight to guide our way… For those still worried about the dog, Barkley did make it back to the house while I was lost in my mind – crisis averted. Thank God!

I remembered bonfires and swimming parties. I remembered teepeeing those woods more than once  and hauling ass with Darewood down that damn gravel drive (we’d park by the country road so we wouldn’t be seen – it’d always seem like a smart idea before we tossed the tissue in the trees, but it became the dumbest idea ever as we sprinted back like half a mile in the middle of the night as if our lives depended on it).

I remembered Chelle’s engagement celebration. I remembered sitting on the back porch sharing a glass of wine with Ruth and Joe.

As much as things feel a bit foreign when I’m back now, Ruth’s and Joe’s house made me feel like I was home again. That feeling wasn’t because of the house they’d built, but because of the love they provided to anyone and everyone who stepped foot inside. I am so lucky and thankful for the Blackburn clan who unconditionally adopted me into their family so many years ago. I would do anything for those people as I know they’d do anything for me. I can never thank them enough.

The Blackburn Clan

I didn’t mean for this post to get so sappy and sentimental as basically every story I have relating to Ruth’s and Joe’s is actually rather crazy, comical, or fun. I was just a bit surprised that day because though I was brought there under sad circumstances, I found my heart wasn’t filled with sadness at all. It was filled with the purest  joy and love as I wandered around reliving those amazing moments we shared. And that’s the way life should be.

For Joe …

I’ve always been fascinated by cultures outside of my own. Toss in a pair of puppy dog eyes and a sexy accent – I’m sold. No offense to my hot red-blooded American men, though I adore you, the spark was never going to be the same. We would have been like a one dimensional 4^th of July fountain fizzling out far too quickly whereas me and a man from a foreign land would be like those crazy aerial cakes shooting for the stars in multi-colored glory leaving lingering picturesque impressions in the skies.

I owe my destiny (and type) to that of pen pal writing. Remember when there was such a thing as letters?

Letters. The life blood of communication before the Internet.

No emails, snap chats, tweets, posts or text messages. People communicated through tried and true letter writing. Penmanship mattered. It was actually a thing. Genuine thought was placed within the confines of a page. Someone from somewhere in the world, whether it was across town or across the pond, sat and took the time to pour their views and feelings onto a piece of paper for your eyes only. It was an intimate gesture that bound you closely to whomever it was that wrote those words just for you. Yes. Letters. I miss them.

But I digress.

My first foray into pen palling was around 3^rd or 4^th grade. My dad had a business partner in Italy with a daughter my age. After one of my father’s visits there, Manuela and I exchanged a couple of letters. We didn’t really continue beyond one or two notes, though I do remember trading a bracelet or necklace through our short-lived exchange.

This personal introduction to someone literally an ocean away had me hooked. I desperately wanted to know more people and places in the world. Those couple of letters between Manuela and me were the beginning of a lifelong pull towards those who hailed from anywhere beyond the USA.

Now don’t get me wrong – I’m a HUGE patriot and happy to connect with my fellow Americans. In fact, Clifford’s and my first argument resulted in me yelling at him to take the next boat back because I was tired of him comparing the US to Europe. BUT, patriotism doesn’t necessarily define my type nor quench my global thirst.

Back to international intrigue.

In 7^th grade we had to take German for six weeks with Herr Miller (I loved Herr Miller!). I fell in love with the language and culture and had dreams of being an exchange student myself one day (kinda turned out cool that my father-in-law is Austrian actually). There was this organization Herr Miller used, almost like something out of the back of a magazine wherein you paid a few bucks for a student’s name anywhere in the world. You filled out a little form requesting from which country you wanted your new writing companion to be and whether you wanted a male or female friend. I never heard from the German girl I requested, but I did get responses from the two Australians.

I was fascinated by Australia back in the day as well. I wanted to live there. I blame Crocodile Dundee and the cuteness of baby koala bears for such fanciful thoughts. I traded pictures with my blonde Aussie pen pals and some small knick knacks to boot.

Nate sent a jewelry box and a stuffed koala bear.

One pal was named Nate and the other Sharon. We had a couple of great letter writing successes between us for being minors and across the world from one another, but like most long distance relationships in 7^th grade, our connection was not meant to be of the infinite kind. With today’s technology, I should actually see if I could track them down. Hmm…maybe.

Before I knew it, those younger letter writing days had culminated in a permanent tug towards anyone with an accent who hadn’t seen Hoosiers and had a cornfield-less backyard. If I was at a party, my ears perked at words that sounded as if they had just been spoken by a character from the latest British spy film. I had unknowingly been building my “type.”

Freshman year my first date to a high school dance was with a senior foreign exchange student from Sweden. That’s just fun to say (sigh)… His name was Mattias.

Me and Mattias. Oh, and my hideous tennis tan lines. I do not miss farmer’s tans at all. Or 90′s fashion.

We never wrote letters, but again, there was that fervent pull to someone from somewhere else in the world with a slew of different experiences to my own.

Sophomore year I became really good friends with a girl from Finland named Marianne.

Sweet, wonderful Marianne.

She had a killer forehand (we were both tennis players) and we hung out all of the time. I remember walking with her through her neighborhood as she smoked cigarettes like they were going out of style while she shared stories about her homeland. I remember thinking- This is SO European! It made me want to order a French café and don a beret (yeah, I know she was from Finland). I wish we would have stayed in touch when she went home. Probably my fault we didn’t.

My next actual pen pal became my boyfriend. I remember the words “I’m a 22 year old guy from South Africa” popping off the page.

A 22 year old guy from South Africa (I was 18).

I’d graduated from magazine advertisements to the World Wide Web in search of expanding my horizons via one-to-one letter writing campaigns. Shaun and I exchanged emails daily but we wrote letters as well, and not just a one page little ditty to send off to one another, but three to ten page dissertations about our likes and dislikes, hopes and dreams.

Shaun and me being total hams.

Those types of things can bond you more closely or more quickly than seeing a person every day. Sometimes we can say on paper what we can’t say out loud.

“Words are but air; the pen leaves a mark.” – Unknown

My doubles partner in college was one of the coolest women I’ve ever met. Jelena was from Croatia and she was awesome.

The best doubles partner ever and a truly beautiful friend.

We were a great team. Her accent was incredible. I loved the way she said my name. I could listen to her talk about anything. She could make the dictionary sound interesting with her pronunciations. And she had this vibe that was so relaxed and independent and wise. And she was blunt. She put it out there openly and honestly. I craved listening to her experiences growing up overseas. She had the biggest heart, too. I am a lucky girl to have had her as a partner and friend.

Lucia and I became friends when I lived in Italy.

Lucia and me. We had the same hair.

We became close friends that summer. We travelled to the beach, to Rome, to Siena, to Florence, to Cortona and to all sorts of little villages here and there along the way. We rode our bikes everywhere. We walked around town late at night discussing movies and boys and whatever else young twenty-somethings talk about. She was obsessed with Tim Burton and Johnny Depp and I was, too. She taught me Italian, I helped her with her English. We even crashed the most beautiful Italian wedding I’d ever seen. She was my Italian partner in crime.

Lucia and me and some friends at Principina Beach.

Then there’s Clifford. My husband. A dual citizen of Austria and South Africa, though born and bred in the latter part of the world. We met the second day of college orientation and became fast friends. We eventually ended up walking down the aisle and saying our I Do’s. He said it with the biggest puppy dog eyes and a sexy accent. Like I said, it was destiny.

See those puppy dog eyes?

I’ve learned so much more about the world and the people in it by putting myself out there and exchanging moments, through a letter or an actual conversation, with those who have lived elsewhere in the world. Having pen pals and befriending exchange students changed my life and my approach to it.

People sometimes mock the Facebook or Twitter or whatever social media “friends” one has but has never met. I say that that’s today’s way of pen palling. We have more access to each other than ever before. We don’t need to wait ten days on the postman making a delivery from overseas or fill out an ad from the back of a magazine. We can connect instantly to pretty much anyone anywhere. And we should. Think of how much closer the world can actually be if we connected with it. Think of the kinds of conversations we could have if we participated in them. Think about the impact we could make because of how we are being impacted.

Heavy thoughts for a Monday. Go. Be enlightened. Change the world. And send an actual letter if you can.