a series of moments

When I was a senior in high school, building my yearbook "page" (just about this time, a whopping 19 years ago - God help me), I was on a hunt for good quotes. This was long before the Internet, let alone Google - so my resources were thin. A good place for quotes was Reader's Digest, of all things - and my grandfather had been giving my mother a subscription to the damn thing for eons by then.



So I grabbed a few copies and sat down and found my talisman almost immediately.



"You never know when you're making a memory."



I thought, at 17, that I understood what that meant. And in my own 17 year old way, I did.



But now, from the perspective of a 36 year old - you know, older and older - I feel like I get it in a different and deeper and more humbled way.



Life is a series of events and experiences and moments. Many of them are the mundane, the day to day, the must do - especially when you get past the bliss and optimism of being 17.



I was thinking about this quote and this reality today - a day which by all accounts started out in the mundane, the ordinary, the must-do - and had some moments I will never forget dispersed within. None of those moments were so momentous (I don't think) that I would rank them in the top 10 moments of my life - but they were moments that meant something - that mean something.



There was a little epiphany in the midst of a chaotic workday, where everyone around me was frustrated and angry and stressed (as was I). It was a realization that after months of being really hurt and angry and truly heartbroken in some ways by the actions of someone important in my life - I've moved beyond the day-to-day pain...I don't know how. I wished for that moment over and over for the last 6 months and there it appeared, unexpected, in the middle of a conversation about shoes of all things. It was just a realization that that biting hurt that had been sitting under the surface for months - it was missing.



A memory. A moment.



This prompted another realization - that I am so blessed to have some of the friends I have in my life.



I know, aren't we all?



But I am an extremely guarded person. Over the years, I have been accused by friends, lovers, and strangers alike of being both snobby and standoffish. I am neither - I think I am a warm and genuine person who loves deeply and cares too much about people. But I am guarded. I have been hurt so many times by people I loved, by friends who were important to me - so me letting people into who the TRUE Andrea is - it's a frightening proposition for me and it generally only occurs after months of careful consideration.



So the fact that I have a small collection of good, close friends, with whom I've shared my biggest triumphs, my deepest fears, and my lowest lows. Some know just how much I struggle, how false (not phony, just occasionally misleading) my outwardly confident persona is at times...how much I question my every decision, my every move, the feelings that are in my core. These are people I love with all my heart.



I'm lucky.



And it was that silly, light-hearted, odd ball conversation about shoes and the virtues of zappos.com and piperlime.com...a nothing conversation in the broad scheme of memories and moments, that triggered this understanding of this feeling of peace, and this reminder of how lucky I am.



So to the friends I love so dearly, and trust with my deepest fears and secrets - thank you from the bottom of my heart. In ways that that naive and scared 17 year old never would have anticipated, my life is far more confusing, complicated, hard, and amazing that I expected - and it's only because I have such amazing friends that I can walk through it with only an occasional nervous breakdown.



Life is a series of moments, memories. And today - today there were moments, meaningful moments.