My Resolutions, Successes and Failures.: My Un-Valentine's Day

Did Valentine's day come and go and I not so much as say a word about it?

Yes, it did, as it will I'm sure for more years in the future.

Today, the second day after the unspoken day, my son wakes up and asks me what I bought him for Valentine's Day. I think fast and respond that I put in for the puzzle his Nana gave him on that day. He catches on and says Nana said she bought it on her own and that I have to buy something for him with my own money. With that, I assured him I loved him and reminded him that I woke him up with Valentine's Day wishes. We also went to the store to buy Valentines for his class that morning on the way to school. And that he has all my love and heart and there is no money that could ever top that value.

Then later today at work I was minding my own business and Stacey walks up with one of those ProFlowers boxes saying my name. Well I don't miss a beat and automatically tell her she has the wrong person. She says "No" and double checks my name on the box. At this point I am interested and check out the label too. It does have my name on it! And yet I don't think I even had a spark of enthusiasm, I'm still in investigator mode wondering how someones flowers could have gone so horribly wrong! Y chimes in and says maybe it is from a crew member??? I'm like yeah... right... based on all those annual training reviews we aren't in their favorites category.

I get it open and find the card and read it and almost have a few tears. I knew I had to keep it together because I had a few people around me, but it was for me from a very special soul that I met years ago.

Nowadays she works nights and goes to school when she's not working and keeping a busy home with a stay at home husband and two little boys. I work days and go home to my little boy. Every phone conversation we have in between those minutes neither of us have time for we have to spit out as many random facts and updates in our lives as possible before something else is demanding our attention other than our phone call. We do get together when our schedules allow, but it will never be enough because I enjoy hanging out with her so much.

It seems like every moment in our past we just missed each other by moments and that our meeting was fate. She dated my brothers good friend when I was in Jr. High school so she knew my brother before I even knew her. We partied at the same places and did a lot of the same things, but nothing.. no meet... no how. Then one day my road butted me up against a little place called Plantation Coffeehouse and I became an employee. A few months later she came knocking on Plantation's door. It was maybe the first night I worked with her and she had all this boyfriend drama, I think he came in and made an ass of himself or something along those lines. I don't remember the details of it but I remember she was crushed and that was that, she has been my friend ever since... I even let her clean the pastry case every time we worked together.

After that there were so many things that happened in between and around and back again and she has always been there one way or another. No matter how far away or how close to each other we live or what screwed up messes we get into with our lives... always there. Yes we have fought and thought the other one was utterly ridiculous, but I never stopped loving that girl. There was too much there! Great things happen when we are together. She has such an awesome soul and people are just drawn to her, she can go anywhere in the world and know someone or have someone come up to her that knows her. That rarely happens to me, but with her, all the time! We even went to the dump one time together to trash a sofa and low and behold! She freakin' knew somebody else that was dumping trash off too! I'll never let her live that one down.

There have been so may things that have happened over the years, broken hearts, drunken giggle fests, late nights with great pot luck dinners and lots of wine, hard work, blood, sweat, tears, cow fields in the rain, putting the gris-gris on unsuspecting victims (HA!), more broken hearts, and so many other things I could never tell you about or I would have to kill you. OH! Just MELCH and get over it.

Lots of time we have spent just gazing out at nature and having conversations (I wish we had more of those) and she is someone who can appreciate beautiful scenery just as much as I do and soak it all in! We've laid back and waited for shooting stars at campgrounds, we've spent evenings on a wet sailboat looking up at the sky listening to the sounds of the ocean come and go feet away from us. We've spent nights around a coffee table in a Metairie apartment indulging with random sushi from Little Tokyo. We've eaten Luther's loaded chop bakers without any utensilas at all!

Sometimes she doesn't hear me talk because she is pretty much deaf (or I mumble if it is her side of the argument), but she still nods and giggles in all the right places. I'll throw a random question out there like "do you have on dirty underwear?" And she'll still nod and giggle right on beat and then I'm like... you didn't hear a word I said, did you? And still on beat she says no, but you know you mumble, and I'm like yeah I'm used to it!

And let's see what else?? Moving in, moving outs, mom smelling fingers, scouting nurseries for herb plants, randomly walking up and down aisle of whole foods and indian stores, slowly strolling through the french quarter stopping at every window to ooo and aaaa, and always telling me she loves me. We decided long ago that if we are old ladies and alone again we would move in together and live as a married couple (even though we will sleep with other people). I'm still banking on that promise!

And to see a soul that is so in tune with the environment around it! I don't know if it happens to J all the time, but when she is with me I see the reality of manifestation. We talk about an owl at a wedding, we see an owl in the tree when we pull back into the driveway. We need a good parking spot, a parking spot just opens up. You have a question that is plaguing you about something in your past? You will meet some random stranger with her that has the answer to one of those questions and more information on it that you could ever dream to have and then you all wander into the concert together.

I could go on and on and on, but I wanted to at least notice the surface things in my blog so they go into the blog book. I hope she knows that I was GREATLY surprised and her act of kindness will allow me to pay it forward to another unsuspecting person that needs a boost. I love you J! Thank you so much! You are one of the gifts this world has given to me and I am a most grateful recipient!

So this is what that sweet little soul sent me...