Too much

40 B4 40
15 days to go (and miles before I sleep)

It'll be a surprise to no one here that I've skipped a full week of writing.  I was, you see, distracted, and, as evidenced below, my heart was so full that I couldn't find the words to capture it all anyway.


It's too much.  It's too, too much.  The love and details and outpouring of this-is-your-life style telling of tall tales and the wink across the table because there's so much more to share but no space in between all the other telling to tell it... that, is, too, too much.  The gifts and the wine and the bloodsweatandtears and our shared histories and the building of The Tribe that make this laughter possible is too, too much.  The miles traveled, the sweet details put into each moment, the songs collected & sung, the favorite food made with hands and hearts that love too, too much.  The ones who couldn't make it, that wove their fantabulous ways into the conversation and the stories all the same, for it isn't the same without them in the mix.  The sassy, salty, giggly gifts.  The kind words.  The melding of old, inside jokes into new, collective ones.  The thoughtful, far-back-into-our-history re-tellings of from whence we've each come, to today, to this place, to this time and to bringing our whole selves to this table.   It's all too, too much.

We are each made up of tiny pieces of the ones with whom we are surrounded.  And I, very cleverly, have surrounded myself with simply the best. 

Each of these wonderful women who continue, over time, and each in her own way, to selflessly and repeatedly give bits of themselves over to be sloppily pasted together into the me you see before you.  The sum of their (spare) parts is miraculously held together with bubble gum and bailing wire in the shape of my sometimes brave, often wobbly, occasionally strong, definitely running-scared, and ever-learning self.  And for every ounce that they have graciously spared, I'm that much more put together, that much more witty and wise and sarcastic and bold.

Thank you darling friends.  Try as I may, I can not say what I want to say, I can not find the big enough words to explain how deep is my love, and how full is my heart.  And so instead - in the wise, wise words of one Miss Judy Blume (who surely speaks to each member of The Tribe):   "We are friends for life.  When we're together the years fall away, isn't that what matters?  To have someone who can remember with you?  To have someone who remembers how far you've come?"

So, for Amy & Amy & Lisa & Joanna & Sawnia & Erica & Nancy Jane & Libby & Tammie (and the many more who didn't fit in the house) - I am looking forward to remembering how far each of us have come for the *next* 40 years.

I am in awe that you each also chose me.