Just Some Woman I Know

I have this friend. She's a really good friend of mine, actually. We like a lot of the same things. We've grown both apart and together over the years, but even when we're not in synch...I know that she's always there for me.

Whenever I feel low or discouraged, I can always count on her to say the right thing. She tells me the things nobody else does. She encourages me to be a better person. She doesn't sugar coat it, either. When I need some real advice or straight talk...she delivers.

I really dig who she is, and over the years, I've come to love her for this amazing woman she's grown into. She's not afraid to try new things. She can do just about anything she puts her mind to. She's smart, and caring, and brave, and honest.

She talks to just about anyone. It's the most bizarre thing. She'll strike up a conversation with random strangers about anything at all. She likes to call those 800 manager lines on her drive-thru receipts and tell them what a wonderful job their teenaged employees are doing. I asked why she's always chatting up people she doesn't know, and she couldn't say why. Personally, I think she just likes the human race.

She is pretty well-liked herself, I think. She's one of those people who really goes out of her way to be kind, generous, and helpful. A long time ago she decided that Robert Fulghum had the right idea, and she began performing random acts of kindness. I admit, even I laughed about that. Didn't stop her though.

For all that, she really is an introverted kind of a person. You might not realize this about her unless you know her very well, because she tends to hide things. She grew up slightly different from most people you might know. Not the roughest of childhoods, but hers certainly did leave it's imprint. She told me once that, regardless of how she may seem, inside she will always be that scared, shy, poor little new girl at school. She doesn't have a lot of friends that are intimately close. Well, besides me.

We don't see each other as much anymore. Every once in awhile she'll pop in for a visit, or we'll go to a concert, or something. But with work stress and life in general, it's getting more and more rare.

I know she misses me too. This morning I was thinking about her as I brushed my teeth, so I leaned in toward the mirror, peered into my hazel eyes, squinted them slightly, and yeah...she's still there. She smiled right at me and asked me to go do lunch.

You know what? I think that's a great idea.