God bless the broken road that lead me straight to you...

What a weekend... I feel like I owe you, dear readers, a bit of a break from all the saaaaaadness and heaviness presented here at ...but we're making good time. Indulge me though with another post o' musings about love, family, friends, and how much we truly do all need one another.

Spent the weekend in Chicago for the Out of the Darkness Overnight Walk. Clearly this had the potential to be sooooooo depressing (it *is* all about suicide, after all). But trust me when I say this - I've not laughed this much in a very, very long time. We're talking purple Gatorade out the nose, snorting into your napkin, spitting your beer onto your dinner-mates, real-live tears on the cheeks, and even a touch of peeing your pants kind of laughing.

You know who you are but I'll list you here for posterity all the same - Molly, Lisa, Ally, Sawnia & Tommy - thank you thank you thank you for, once again, reminding me that the choices we make and the people we surround ourselves with really can have outstanding outcomes. This week coulda been sucha bummer, so heavy and intense. Instead, it was filled with what I'm learning just might be the keys to happiness in this life:

• Hard work - oy, my aching bones and back today!
• Good food & drink - mmmmmmmm, those snacks & beers by the river on Sunday afternoon were the tastiest morsels of all time, with or without Miracle Whhhhhip.
• Old friends - no, not just Tommy 'cause he's *actually* old... but the kind of people that have been in your world for a while, that have gotten to know you well, but stick around anyway. The ones you can share a hotel room and a bathroom (or a porta potty) with and still like each other all the same. The ones we can literally survive 24 straight hours awake together with and still speak both kindly to and about one another.
  
• Tough conversations - the ones where you are able to say what desperately needs to be said. To bring up the hurt and stare it in the face so that you can maybe start to get past it, to put it all properly behind you, and not just put the lid on that box.
• No words at all - those moments when just sitting next to someone is about all you can muster, and you hope and pray and beg that that's gonna be enough.
• Laughter - true, from the gut, crack each other (or just yourself!) up, we're all so tired that we're clearly delirious laughter. Damn if my cheeks and belly don't still hurt from all that laughing.

My plane is boarding so I can't finish or edit this properly... just know that we all gave our best selves this week and I love you each like crazy for it. In an incredibly bassackwards way -- I'm grateful for the losses that brought each of you into my life. Where in this world would I be without you???