Long Time No See
Today I am grateful for the recliners in our living room and for a long overdue visit with my friend Jenny.
Jenny and I got together last night and as always had plenty to talk about. We were surprised to determine that it had been over a year and a half since we had seen each other. We've had phone conversations, shared texts back and forth, made plans to get together that ended up falling through . . . and we each have busy lives with our families and other commitments. Next thing you know, it's a year and a half later.
I always enjoy time with Jenny. She has the kind of energy I like to be around. Inevitably we always run out of time together before we run out of conversation. We were born six weeks apart in 1965. She's a city girl. I'm a farm girl. We met in 2000 when we ended up working at the same school.
We were each diagnosed with breast cancer within weeks of one another in 2008. That is when we went from friendly co-workers to a much deeper level of friendship. Sharing that experience, each facing the decisions and challenges in our own unique ways, but being able to literally and figuratively walk together through some difficult days, was a real blessing for both of us.
She practices and teaches yoga. I run marathons. We are both writers. That common ground of exercise and writing really brings us together. What will two writers do with an experience like cancer? They will write about it. We wrote a book together that remains in manuscript form.
But the beauty of that book is the collaboration and the inspiration we gave one another. It is also where the essayist that I am now comfortable being was just starting to find her own voice. Jenny helped bring out that voice. It has given me more direction in my writing goals and is part of the reason I had the confidence to start this blog. Thank you Jenny! What a blessing writing that book really was. Maybe some day it will even get published.
Here is an earlier post that talks more about Jenny and I, our cancer travels, and our writing.
Long time no see Jenny. So good to see you! Let's hope it is only weeks or months until next time.
Jenny and I got together last night and as always had plenty to talk about. We were surprised to determine that it had been over a year and a half since we had seen each other. We've had phone conversations, shared texts back and forth, made plans to get together that ended up falling through . . . and we each have busy lives with our families and other commitments. Next thing you know, it's a year and a half later.
I always enjoy time with Jenny. She has the kind of energy I like to be around. Inevitably we always run out of time together before we run out of conversation. We were born six weeks apart in 1965. She's a city girl. I'm a farm girl. We met in 2000 when we ended up working at the same school.
We were each diagnosed with breast cancer within weeks of one another in 2008. That is when we went from friendly co-workers to a much deeper level of friendship. Sharing that experience, each facing the decisions and challenges in our own unique ways, but being able to literally and figuratively walk together through some difficult days, was a real blessing for both of us.
She practices and teaches yoga. I run marathons. We are both writers. That common ground of exercise and writing really brings us together. What will two writers do with an experience like cancer? They will write about it. We wrote a book together that remains in manuscript form.
But the beauty of that book is the collaboration and the inspiration we gave one another. It is also where the essayist that I am now comfortable being was just starting to find her own voice. Jenny helped bring out that voice. It has given me more direction in my writing goals and is part of the reason I had the confidence to start this blog. Thank you Jenny! What a blessing writing that book really was. Maybe some day it will even get published.
Here is an earlier post that talks more about Jenny and I, our cancer travels, and our writing.
Long time no see Jenny. So good to see you! Let's hope it is only weeks or months until next time.
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