For Gratitude Monday
I’m grateful (again) for friends.
But this time I’m
grateful that a friend in Virginia, who’s been going through an upsetting and
frustrating time, called me for comfort, perspective and a couple of paragraphs
of text that she’s too pissed off to compose in a neutral, considered manner.
(It’s to do with a
couple of homeowner associations. If you’ve ever had to deal with one, you’ll
know why 1) she’s pissed off and 2)she needed someone not in the middle of it
to tone down the text. Even so it took me six rewrites before I got “destruction”
down to “damage” and finally to “alteration”. We’re talking trees here.)
Carol Ann and I go
back a ways—to before I moved to NoVa. When I did, she was a ready-made friend
who could recommend a vet for the cats and places to get ice
cream. Both are extremely important.
For years, until I
moved to Seattle, she and I met most weekends for breakfast. We’re far enough
out how each other earns her living that we can offer entirely off-the-wall
viewpoints. Sometimes that’s useful, sometimes not; but it makes a change from
what you get every damned day from your colleagues.
So naturally I’m
grateful for a friendship that goes way back. But I’m particularly grateful
that this time she called on me for help. Usually (lately, especially) it seems
the other way round. There have been some phone calls where I couldn’t talk
because I was crying.
It felt really good
to know that I was the person Carol Ann wanted around when she vented on this,
and that I was able to help.
It’s good to have the
opportunity to do that, and to have friends who think you’ll deliver for them.
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