coming and going

life is funny, she is. when i think about the relationships i've had in my life...the people who've entered my life and then left...the ones who stay awhile...the ones who are with me now...it makes me smile. there are times when someone is leaving that i rebel against that...fight it...don't want it to happen...want them to stay...forever...like it is now. but then i have to laugh because even the ones who never leave never stay the same. it is all so dynamic. i can look back and almost see where parts of one relationship prepared me for how things go in another one. or at least that's how it looks sometimes. but then later, down the road, maybe i look back and see it all fitting together differently, but still making just as much sense.

today i met a friend in austin. this friend was my bff's first girlfriend...when my bff first realized she was gay. so i met this friend through the camp we all worked at, and then continued my friendship with her through my bff once they started dating. but i also quit talking to my bff for a number of years because this friend happened to be an alcoholic...and she was not a happy drunk. well, i hear she usually was. but i happened to catch the one night she was a raging, angry, abusive drunk. and i severed ties with my bff in order to keep myself safe and out of that situation again. my bff continued dating her for another year or so, but once they broke up, and i was pregnant with my first son, my bff and i renewed our friendship. i even saw this friend once after my first son was two weeks old, at an indigo girls concert (yes, smile...i am). it was alright, but there wasn't much friendship left between us.

i didn't see this friend again until october of last year. we attended the same weekend long birthday party. it was really, really great seeing her. she played her guitar and sang. we laughed and told jokes together. she asked me to play the newest and best indigo girls song for her. she introduced me to brandi carlile. it was good. i saw her again at my bff's commitment ceremony and then again when i ran my second half marathon. her band played at the seven mile marker and after kissing all of my family and my bff and her partner, i had to go kiss this friend, too.

i went and saw this friend in austin today. i had a really nice time with her. she is struggling with a relationship and struggling with life, much of it in similar ways to what i write about in this blog. i felt hesitant because i have never really been a support to her before. i mostly just listened and tried to be there without being too there, if you know what i mean. and it was good. it was really, really good.

as i drove back home, through austin, i passed the street where my spouse and i had our first apartment in austin...where we found out we were pregnant with our first child. i drove past the street where my sister and her ex-girlfriend had an apartment...the apartment my sister fell from a balcony and cracked her head open on. i drove past the exit for sixth street, where i got both of my tattoos. i drove past the exit to the school i used to work at. past the apartment my spouse and i brought our first child home to...so many memories. i love austin. i love all the feelings it holds...feelings i can describe and understand, and all the ones i can't. events and days and experiences of the past and the ones today, too.

peace