About a Girl

My life is truly an abundant cornucopia of blessings; I remind myself of this every day. But there is, at times, a sorrowful hole in my heart due to an absence of close, lady friends in my day-to-day life. I moved out to Boston not knowing a single soul. I certainly expected it would take some time to settle in and meet new people, but also assumed that before too long, especially starting law school, I’d have a steady group of lady-friends.

Fast forward nearly four years and, I’m sorry to say, it hasn’t exactly panned out that way. The first group of friends I made out here were all of the dude-variety; not that there’s anything wrong with that, they are all awesome guys. A lot of my better friends in the past 10+ year have been guys rather than gals. For whatever reason, I’ve had a tougher time forming close friendships with the women-folk. With a few exceptions, of course.

One of those exceptions, most notably, is Chloe - my best friend, a true kindred spirit. We met at our church youth group the summer before her freshman and my sophomore year of high school. To be sure, she was way too cool for me from the beginning. Though we hit it off initially, we didn't become really close right away. One afternoon, she happened to come over to my house after school and the two of us just sat in my parents' kitchen eating cereal out of the box, talking for hours. Our bond was formed and pretty much from that day forward we were two peas in a pod. We were both on our high school's speech & debate team, attended the same church youth group and mostly ran in the same crowd. She was more of a hot popular jock, I was more of a coy, preppy nerd – kind of an odd pair.

Together and individually, we’ve both gone through most of the same typical high school, college and post-college “phases”. There have been a lot of late nights, lame inside jokes and regrettable (sometimes awesome) shenanigans. Miraculously, we made it through a lot craziness, questioning and youthful stupidity relatively unscathed. Even though we went to different colleges, made other friends and went our separate ways (geographically and, at times, ideologically), Chloe has always been steadfast in my life, a true friend who accepts me exactly as I am and is as grateful for my friendship as I am hers. With the recent exception of my husband of course, Chloe has been the best, most important and influential person in my life.

She is brave and hilarious. She is outrageously silly but has a depth that I have yet to find the bottom of. She has her vices but wears even those with a sense of valor and self. She was the maid of honor in my wedding last year and, truly, embodies that title. In the last year, I have watched her become an entirely reborn person, emerging into an adventurous and brand-new life. I have always been honored to be her friend, but never more so than now.

I am incredibly blessed in the richness of the friendships that I do have, even if the friends I love most are each scattered around the country, and the world. I haven’t given up on making significant relationships in Boston. In truth, I “know” a lot of people here, but just haven’t quite gotten beyond the casual, surface stage with most. But, of course, I’ll keep trying. I’m not that bad, I swear :)

Last week, Chloe came to visit Boston for ten days to job hunt (she’s a kick-ass elementary school teacher in California) and explore the city. Yep, she is actually planning to move out here in late summer! You know, I figured, if I can’t make my own friends here, I’ll just start transplanting my old ones (I kid). Really its her own move, for her own reasons and will be her own adventure. But seriously, how lucky am I?

Here we are in Boston last weekend looking all respectable-like:

Aaaand here we are looking much more true to form: