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captainsblogShe was around when I first started hanging out with trivial-minded people all over the country and other assorted corners of the world. Yet somehow we never managed to speak directly for any number of weeks or months. Eventually, though, the girl they all called Tink said something that resonated with me. A pop culture reference, maybe; or something about her then-barely school-age daughter who was just about Em's age. I opened an instant message to her and just exuded whatever bond had then and suddenly formed; AOL promptly responded with
AOL Instant Message [9:05 p.m.]: Your message cannot be sent because it is too long and complicated.
More than a decade later, and through great length and many complications, that friendship cemented anyway. We've met in a couple of states on a handful of occasions, talked on the phone surprisingly little, and yet have become the long-lost year-apart brother and sister we never had growing up. So many more shared moments followed, and each others' sentences and jokes completed for each other during trivia games and other chats, and we decided that we must be sharing the same brain. That would certainly account for my increasing lack of capacity over the past 10 years; you'll have to ask her yourself if she's suffering the same fate.
I helped her with some of the legalities of her second marriage and with much of the angst of her impending second divorce. We've been there for each other through gains and losses of animal companions, from dog to cat to even moose. Those pre-teen girls we were raising have turned into caring, bright and talented young women beyond either of our wildest dreams. While I'm far less enamored of her soon-to-be-ex than I vaguely used to be, I'm touched by how Tink and Eleanor have begun to plant the seeds of friendship between themselves, as Eleanor's done with so many dear to me.
Most recently, she's been on my mind and in my prayers, if not at my side, during the loss of her father and the plans that has set into motion which will rescue her from Alafreakinbama and place her closer to us, and most other of her dearest friends, in the town and home she grew up in.
For the next two months and change, we will be the same age again. But I'm still the big brother. So say "happy birthday, Donna."
TinkerbeIIe: Happy birthday, Donna:P
AOL Instant Message [9:05 p.m.]: Your message cannot be sent because it is too long and complicated.
More than a decade later, and through great length and many complications, that friendship cemented anyway. We've met in a couple of states on a handful of occasions, talked on the phone surprisingly little, and yet have become the long-lost year-apart brother and sister we never had growing up. So many more shared moments followed, and each others' sentences and jokes completed for each other during trivia games and other chats, and we decided that we must be sharing the same brain. That would certainly account for my increasing lack of capacity over the past 10 years; you'll have to ask her yourself if she's suffering the same fate.
I helped her with some of the legalities of her second marriage and with much of the angst of her impending second divorce. We've been there for each other through gains and losses of animal companions, from dog to cat to even moose. Those pre-teen girls we were raising have turned into caring, bright and talented young women beyond either of our wildest dreams. While I'm far less enamored of her soon-to-be-ex than I vaguely used to be, I'm touched by how Tink and Eleanor have begun to plant the seeds of friendship between themselves, as Eleanor's done with so many dear to me.
Most recently, she's been on my mind and in my prayers, if not at my side, during the loss of her father and the plans that has set into motion which will rescue her from Alafreakinbama and place her closer to us, and most other of her dearest friends, in the town and home she grew up in.
For the next two months and change, we will be the same age again. But I'm still the big brother. So say "happy birthday, Donna."
TinkerbeIIe: Happy birthday, Donna:P