My People

My friend Kay is my spirit animal. Once I asked her to drive to Texas with me to attend a retreat. She is the perfect travel companion, excited where I am uptight, freewheeling when I begin to focus too much on logistics. One look in the back of my Kia Soul (I call it my black soul), our unique personalities were on full display. Me with my belongings in the smallest possible container. Kay said, “hold up” and threw a floor fan on top of all the things.

Bryn and I are two people with one brain. We have bought the same items of clothing at completely separate times. I am an enneagram eight and she is a one, but we have an understanding. And I love her hand-me-downs!

Like me, Kate is a nurse with the mind of an engineer. She can translate inspiration and ideas into reality through uncompromising hard work. She is unfailingly loyal and present for ones of us lucky enough to be in her circle. We keep a check on one another and share understanding about what it means to go down a rabbit hole.

It took me until well into adulthood to comprehend the need for “my people.” I’ve had friends, even close ones, but lacked the ability to trust and to communicate needs. I am hyperindependent. OVer the past ten years, I’ve confronted that reality. I have benefitted from learning what it means to be simultaneously transparent and vulnerable. All of these women have shared and supported me in the most difficult time of my life. Need taught me and brought me the greatest gifts of my life. [More on that later]

“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help. Again if two lie together, they keep warm; but how can one keep warm alone? And though one might prevail against another, two will withstand one. A threefold cord is not quickly broken.” Ecclesiastes 4: 9-12