My emotions are running wild this evening. This can be attributed to a combination of factors, such as having had a near-death experience on the highway this morning with two of my babies in the car with me, having wicked PMS, and having begun to reconnect, through the almighty Facebook, with friends from college with whom I have had no contact for twelve years. Say what you will about FB...I personally have found it to be a source of connection, comfort and, at times, closure and healing to old, open wounds.

I left the University of Maryland after two years, in typical "Old Kate" fashion, because I hit a rough patch of issues with which I didn't know how to deal. I was incredibly young, lacked any sort of fundamental emotional maturity, was hit with a lot of shit from my past and my present, things done unto others by me, things done unto me by others. So I ran away and transferred. I basically up and left and, in doing so, abandoned some of the best friends I would ever know. All these years, this act has haunted me, in the form of me missing them terribly, regretting treating them badly and knowing that there has been a void in my life where these women once stood. I always feared never talking to any of them again, and even as I saw their names on Facebook (as I did start to look for them in the past month), I would most likely not reach out, for fear that these twelve years that have passed would not be enough time to heal all these wounds. They wouldn't want to hear from me. And knowing that there was still anger and animosity would just bring that time and place all back again. I just couldn't bear it.

I was wrong. Again.

I reached out to one. And then to another. Things went well. And others have started to reach out to me...to let me know that they are there, that time has healed wounds, that we've all grown and that I have been missed just as I have missed all of them.

Next to marrying my Peter and becoming a mother to my daughters, this may be one of the greatest gifts I have been given as of late. I have often made clear my absolute reliance on and love for my "girlfriends." And to know that these women from a very formative, and at times difficult, period in my life could be coming back to me, so that we can continue to accompany each other on life's journeys and take part in what has yet to come is a pretty miraculous thing. I feel like I've been given a second chance...and that's a feeling that doesn't come along too often in this life. A chance to apologize and make amends. A chance to set things straight and have slates wiped clean. An chance to find you have friends, unconditionally, no matter what trivial shit came to pass when you were kids. Sometimes, none of it amounts to anything more than a bump and a long pause. And then you pick up where you left off.

I guess it's just one of those days where gratitude comes along and slaps you in the face, and all I can do is soak it up and then send it right back out into the world so someone else can catch it and feel its effects. This might seem like an aside, but it's all going to the same place. Forgive me for getting deep, but these are the things that have been on my mind: I've been finding lately that chronic negativity in people really pisses me off, as a rule of thumb. Don't get me wrong. If you've read my blog you know I have really pissy moments. Many, many really pissy moments. But I believe it's important to have them for the sheer honesty of them, and to let it out so that I purge (there's that word again) and move on to a better place emotionally. How else can we happily survive marriage and motherhood, if that is our goal? But there are a lot of people in this world who subscribe to negativity as a way of life, like a religion. And I can't work for that organization. Call it a Pollyanna Complex or a different perspective, I just can't deal with walking through life assusming and looking for the bad. So in an honest effort at combatting this chronic negativity that keeps trying to creep up and try to infiltrate my life like a disease, I go overboard in feeling these positive moments for what they are, sharing them and trying to make them last as long as possible. And finding new friendship, or rekindling old, precious ones, is proving itself to be one of the best ways to do just that. And again, it doesn't hurt that a car spun out on the highway in front of us and missed crashing into us by (and I am not exaggerating) about a foot. And my horomones are raging!

So thank you to my UMD posse for still being out there, as cool and real as ever, and for having your arms and hearts open to me. Shame on me for ever thinking that I would find anything less than just that, for that is who you are and have always been. All of you.

xoxo