Angela and me ~ Baltimore, Maryland

October, 2009

Today marks the first anniversary of a life changing moment for me.

Only one other day rivals July 3rd in commemorating an event that altered the course of my life and that would be the day my daughter was born, September 20th.

One year ago today, July 3, 2009, marks the first day I exchanged private messages here on Open Salon with someone that, unbeknownst to me at the time, would heal my soul and teach me the true meaning of love; what it should be between two people. It's hard for me to explain how incredibly powerful that has been. 

Our communication is what did that for me...for us. Talking, listening, learning. 

We struck up a conversation and began telling each other little bits about each other. I still have all those early pm's that I love to go back and read now and again. After a while we traded email addresses and of course I also have all of the many, many email exchanges we've had since. The little bits added up quickly and before long we knew so much about each other; the good, the bad and the ugly (believe me, the bad and ugly are on my end only). She owns the Inboxes of my computer and BlackBerry. At some point we decided to start using the telephone (what a night that was! I still remember how nervous I was just before speaking with her the first time), but we fell in love to the written words we exchanged.

 All of the things I liked about Angela (Outside Myself) in those early days and weeks I quickly came to love, and all I've discovered about her since has only served to reinforce the early good impressions I had of her then.

What we have in common is nothing short of amazing...there are the little things like having daughters the same age, being the same ages ourselves...things like that. And then there are the big things that we instantly appreciated about each other - values, the importance of our children in our lives and, later, what we wanted and needed from the love of another. And even more illuminating than that - what we wanted to give. 

 There are so many things about this wonderful woman I could say, so many examples of her kind, compassionate and passionate soul I could write about and have in the posts I written about her. Those of you familiar with her blog and who receive her comments know just a small portion of who she is; the goodness of her character is evident in everything she has written.  No one knows better than me that she is the genuine article; all she appears to be and so very much more.

What I haven't written much about, at all really, here on OS is what the state of my being was before meeting Angela. It's difficult for me and not my nature to be open about the deeply personal wounds I have suffered, even obliquely. But like many of you I have endured my share of emotional damage - battle wounds that scar the soul far more permanently than a knife blade.  When I joined OS it was because I wanted an outlet...not to write about my pain, but to sooth it by expressing a creative side and to throw me a little further out of my comfort zone than I had been in years.

Angela has written about the healing she has experienced through what we share with each other. And while I have been prolific in my writing about the ways in which her love has profoundly affected me, I've said little of the amazing curative power it has had. It is, in a word, astounding. Her gifts to me have repaired my heart in ways I cannot begin to describe, so grand are they. The value of being valued cannot be over estimated...she feeds my soul. I would not be exagerating to say I was broken and that at this point a year ago real love for me was something you watched in a movie that got tied up in a neat little bow at the end; two people made for each other living happily ever after. That was not my reality; I had resolved to go it alone and not seek this mythical love that was so elusive so as to be non-existant.

 But so unexpectedly and quite miraculously, into my life walked Angela.

 She changed everything for me. I began to realize true love was't just the stuff of a Hollywood feature...it could be real. Stunningly, my shrunken, abused heart became filled to overflowing with her; her life and her love. She is a gift of the rarest kind; one that makes your life good and happy and best of all, hopeful.

We would have never known of the other's existance but for this platform. Thanks, Open Salon. You literally are a life-saver. While it is significant hardship to be on opposite coasts, she and I believe that getting to know one another online, with words alone, has truly made the difference for us; communication has been and is our hallmark. It always will be. And though she's 3000 miles away, she's here, inside me. I feel her every second of every day.

And we have plans...oh yes, we have plans. There will come a day the furthest apart we need to be is when one of us runs to the store for a bottle of wine to share in front of the fireplace that night.

I will close these one year anniversary thoughts by sharing with you a short post I wrote last summer. Entitled "A Real Friend", I spoke about the qualities of a friend and what it meant to me to have one in an amazing person, one who I enjoyed and respected immensely, who had become a treasured part of my life and who I looked forward to talking (emailing) with every day.  It didn't matter that we'd never met and at the time neither of us thought we ever would.

I didn't say who I was writing about in that post but it was Angela. She and I have become so very much more than friends since then, but we treasure our friendship and that keeps us not just loving each other, but deeply in love.

And I do love you, Angela. More than my words can say.

Happy anniversary, baby.

~~~~~

A Real Friend   July 25, 2009

I recently met someone through this technology we call the internet. The circumstances of our meeting or the platform that facilitated it are not important for my purposes here. 

We have become fast friends in a relatively short time. We talk daily; relating to each other little snippets of our lives, joking and having serious conversations - all via email. Her on her latest smart phone wonderbox and me on mine we say good morning, goodnight and chat on and off in between. I am dumbfounded by the serendipity of it all; I am only the recent user of a wonderbox. Until a month ago my wireless communication was done with only the most basic of cell phones.

Before anyone gets any lusty ideas, this is not a cybersexual relationship; no such lines have been crossed. This is a friendship in the truest definition of the word. I have good friends in my "real" world with who I do not share many of the things she and I have discussed. While I won't go into detail about what some of those topics have been (that's between her and me, after all) I will say the wisdom and fellowship we have shared has been a revelation to me. How is it that we have grown so close yet have never been in each other's physical presence and in all likelihood never will? We joke about that by the way and although there is perhaps sometimes a wistfulness behind the jokes that has not impeded our ability to find common ground and grow close.

These thoughts came to the surface for me last night when I was having some trouble with my wonderbox. My modern marvel was having trouble exchanging the phantom electrons that our friendship relies on with the nearest cell tower. I was unable for a brief time to relay a most important thought to her as I was sitting in an airport unloading zone dropping off some "real" world friends on their way to a well deserved vacation.

When I arrived home later I was able to send the desired communication so all was well. But how frustrating it was not to be able to say what I wanted to say when I wanted to say it. True, this particular missive was not life or death; it was simply an acknowledgment of something she had said to me earlier. Had I been unable to talk with someone else in my life, a friend or family member from the "real" world, I'm sure the minor inconvenience would have passed by my consciousness with but the slightest anxiety. But since my friendship with this special person relies solely on this technology and, in fact, exists only because of it, I was fretting the disconnection. I wasn't in a panic of course but thoroughly annoyed at the failing. Although certainly on her end this delay passed unnoticed. Had she known of my consternation she very likely would have told me I was being silly which of course was true. Knowing she would think this made me realize again how fortunate I am to count her as a friend. She is far from demanding; indeed my friendship with her is as easy and natural as any I have been privileged to be a part.

So perhaps it is time for me to stop using quotes to define the real world. Because if my friendship (that term itself seems inadequate to describe the bond we share) with this wonderful, feeling, caring and thoughtful person is anything, it is without question real.

  Angela and me ~ northern California coast

May, 2010

Angela's (Outside Myself) 1 year anniversary post can be found here!

~xoxoxo~