Friendship

It is a snowy, snowy night in NYC and I am sitting here thinking about friendship. Specifically, a friendship I have lost. Friendship is a huge theme of my novels. It is often, if not always, more important than the central love story. What we are talking about here is sisterhood. The few people we meet along the way who we never want to be parted from. My friendships, to me, are epic. They have narratives-- where we met, what our first date was, how long we've been together.

It happens, sometimes, that someone falls out of our lives. For reasons beyond (or perhaps due to) our own abilities we are separated from a dear sister. It is sad. I have been sad. I think of this lady a lot. She was the inspirations for so many of the wonderful, loyal, fiercely loving characteristics of Rosaline's friends in WHEN YOU WERE MINE. I am so grateful for the time we got together.

I believe nothing is finite, and everything is fluid. I believe we are capable of forgiveness beyond our wildest dreams. I believe in the impossible. I also know how important acceptance is. How, right here and now, this is where we stand.

I have never been very good at change. My friends are better at it. They know it, too. I am always wanting what was, for us to be the way we were. Sometimes I wonder why. Things are so much more wonderful, now. We are older, we are wiser. We do not bicker the way we used to. We respect each other more, we love each other deeper. And yet--

Nothing is the way it used to be. I miss that sometimes. I miss you.

XOXO,

R