A Month of Reflection: Day Fifteen
Well, I missed one. I was able to power through and write during my migraine, but the subsequent head cold took my final energy reserves. Alas, I am back. And you get 2,000 words you greedy bastards.
Back and better than ever as they say.
Fifteen days of reflecting of life…what a journey it’s been. And we are only halfway done. I have been back and forth about what to write about for today, so I figured I’ll take this opportunity to go back to our focus on family. Specifically, soul family. More specifically, friends.
I’ve been feeling rather nostalgic for my soul family lately, those in California specifically. Cole and I lived there for a year in 2022 before coming to Ohio. It was probably the greatest year of my pre-motherhood life. Not probably, definitely.
I had just started my podcast with my best friend, newlyweds, moving to a dream apartment in downtown San Diego. There are three stories of three friends from San Diego I want to tell you today. Because these are the beings who I hold closest to me when I start to question myself. I have been doing that a lot lately. Not so much questioning who I am or anything, just…if I am “right”, whatever that means.
John
John Michael is kind of a cheat to tell in a series of California friend stories, because he actually came into my life long before that. John is one of my oldest friends and one of the few people who truly know me. I worry I am not fulfilling enough to claim to be his best friend, but I also know he would bitch slap me for even typing that. So I am keeping it in, requiring a trip so that he my slap my face.
In was 2012 when I met John. He attended the same pre-nursing program our senior years and we actually ended up at the same nursing school following. John, however, graduated on track, while I took a bit of a roundabout way to finish my nursing education. We stayed close though through it all. From the moment we met there was just a click. It fit. He is me.
I don’t have to explain myself, he just gets it. And he tells me how it is, but I don’t question if he hates me or if there is some hidden meaning. He’s real. He’s also just an amazing human being. An unbelievable nurse. He has done everything from flight nursing to pediatric ER nurse to PACU. He is a pilot. And gentlemen, he’s single. If I did not have Cole, I would suggest that John and I enter a platonic relationship where we take advantage of the system, while engaging in wild sex with copious partners all through the south of France. A dream that is lived out in a life of mine somewhere.
In September of 2021, just four months shy of my move to San Diego, John let me know he was going to move to the same SoCal city. *miracles happen* So when I arrived shortly later in February it was just two small town East Coast gals taking on the West Coast. Fabulous doesn’t even begin to cover it.
I struggle to tell people what they mean to me, I struggle to show affection or reach out, I miss calls. Being friends with me is accepting being friends with a bad friend. I accept that, I hate it about myself. John…John never makes me think twice about it. When I had gotten to California, I had just lost my baby and I was on the opposite side of the country from my husband. I hadn’t seen Cole since the miscarriage and…John was the first familiarity that I had that I could really lean on. I am me, so I don’t think he thought I was leaning on him at all. But he held me up more than he knows.
There was one particular day, it was in July, that I have been thinking about often. Cole was in San Diego then and it was a week before our anniversary. John had signed out his airplane (some pilot club thing I don’t know how to say that he had access to a plane that was not his plane) and he wanted to take us for a flight. John, Cole and I piled into this tiny airplane, the kind of thing a lot of people wouldn’t just climb into with the same person who’s puked you very poorly cleaned out of their parents bean bag chair. I like to take risks though, YOLO right?
We just casually took a flight up the coast the Elle Ehhh (LA with a ridiculous accent) for lunch. Funnily enough, it wasn’t the trip to LA, the burger, the views from the airplane that I have been grasping to lately. It was my boys. Cole and John sitting there in front of me, me stuffed in the back. Us all with these headsets on trying to be professional as John speaks his pilot jargon. It’s that feeling of “wow living this, having lived this, makes everything worth it, and if I get nothing else at all, at least I have lived this”.
I wrote a journal entry in the back of the plane on my phone. Very unusual for me, I never journal in my phone. I am actually vehemently against the idea of an app for journaling, but that is just because I think the action of the pen to the paper if what allows the cathartic experience to arise, it cannot be simulated by a screen, I digress. I am going to leave a little bit from that journaling here:
These words still ring true, it is so wild to look back and see, little baby me cheering for herself.
There was a lot more in this entry, a lot more that doesn’t feel quite right to share now and in this way. Things that are for other people and things that are just for me. I don’t read my journals often. I don’t read any of my writing often. This is such a bad habit that I often send typos or messages that make no sense. But the idea of having to read my own words is so hard for me to cope with I would rather look like I don’t know which “your” to use.
It was John though, John sweeping me off my feet. John coming and laying in the sun. John giving me the best true crime to watch while Cole was away in the submarine. John was y rocks, and in case I never told him, this will always been here for him to know.
John Michael, you are my best friend in the world<3
Katelynn
Before we even arrived in San Diego I was scouring for jobs because, well, it was California and I had heard the nightmares of how expensive it was. They were true. At some point I came across an application for a job at a flower shop and sent in my resume without really even thinking about it.
Fast forward a couple of weeks and I was sitting in John’s living room when I got a phone call for an interview at a flower shop that happened to be just a few blocks away from my new apartment.
It was a dream come true, seriously. Like pinch me. The best part of this job though, my boss. Ms. Katelynn. The strongest, most fearless and badass woman that I know.
She interviewed me and I remember thinking, oh perfect well I have this job. She was amazing from the start. For one she let me cry in my interview. More than that though, she was so fucking kind. I don’t know that I had ever met someone so truly kind, but also tough, before. Usually there is much more of a bitchy cross over. Not in Kate though. She is just a delight all the time, but you also wouldn’t want to fuck with her.
Synchronicities are something that drive me a lot in my life, for example the fact that Katelynn had just moved back there from Columbus, OH where my brother is was one thing. Then there was the fact that we both adored cannabis, bonus. Lastly, we were healing.
Fuck did we heal together. We laughed, we cried, we made art. So much art.
I had no idea how much beauty was in a flower, which is insane because a flower is objectively the most beautiful things in the world. But Katelynn is the kind of person that could turn a piece of shit into a masterpiece. She sees the beauty in everything.
I feel so grateful to have had her guidance in my life during that time. To have had her friendship.
Maybe it seems silly, but those talks day in and day out, while we put together these bouquets, they saved my life a lot of days. They kept me breathing. Some mornings Katelynn was all that got me out of bed. She is my angel.
I carry her with me when I need help remembering that it is okay to defend myself. That I can be a soft and beautiful woman, who also stands her ground. Katelynn is who I think of when I need help remembering who the fuck I am, because I know she would love to tell me.
Rachel
Now, Rachel’s story is the most…mystical. Mostly because our true meeting was so brief, yet she became an immediate member of my family. Or maybe it is just that she always was one and finally we were united in this life.
I was working one day at the flower shop when this lovely woman walks in. I could see on her face that she was feeling, I couldn’t tell what it was, but she was feeling. She was looking around and I smiled and asked how I could help. She giggled just a little and then said something about how there isn’t enough help. We laughed. But I knew the feeling, we all do.
She shared that she was visiting from D.C. She was a teacher in for a big conference, and there was her conflict. Her career. Boy, did I resonate with this. Just the summer prior I was going through my own struggle with my career in nursing. All of the sudden I was telling her all of this, and that she can quit if she wants. She told me she is scared her mom will be upset, we both cried here. Another feeling I understood all too well.
She bought a couple flowers, we hugged and exchanged social media.
That is it. That is our own physical contact.
But Rachel is my big sister. She’s incredible at it. Inspiring and kind and intelligent. She is organized and always remembers the little things, and makes the big seem special in the little ways. She’s one of those special people who can hold you in all of their energy simply with a glance.
Rachel has helped me find reiki and embrace my inner healer. She has showed me that I am an artist too, simply because I am alive. That one interaction and all of the sudden a whole new part of my world lit up, a part I never knew I could be a part of.
I carry Rachel with me when I need a friend, a mom, a teacher, a guide, a gentle reminder of love. She is also a huge reminder of mine to be patient. A lot of our friendship lately has been through snail mail. It has created this beautiful romantic level to our relationship. I am not sure a letter can be sent that is not a love letter.
Thank you for being here and reading my words. Please take the time to check out the links below for ways to make an impact in this world. Be kind and be you.
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