Entries Tagged 'Friendship' ↓

Last night, I read a message from a husband telling his wife’s friends that she has had a stroke. Anissa Mayhew was in the ICU and we had no further information.

A stroke. A mother, a blogger, a friend, my age, infatuated with Edward Cullen and looking forward to a Disney Cruise planned for tomorrow, had a stroke and is now unresponsive.

I don’t claim to be Anissa’s BFF. By no means. And I won’t get all freaky and make this tragedy all my own. But my heart has broken regardless. If you know Anissa even in passing, or from reading her blog, you will understand this. Anissa’s reach extends far beyond her immediate friends or family in Atlanta. And I am having a very hard time expressing all that she has done for everyone else… Really, just go and read about her. I know I just won’t do her one stick of justice.

So, I’m far from her BFF but I know her. We’ve met a few times and I consider her a friend. We shared a stroller at the March of Dimes walk this year. (By the way, she organized that group. Local Tampa bloggers came together – see pic here – to walk for Maddie because she organized it. It’s just how she rolls.) Our kids have played together. She promised me vodka at the Type A Moms conference. When my friend’s baby passed away, I found myself immediately typing an email to her. HELP. What do I do? She told me to BE THERE for her, don’t back away. Did you know that she went to 9 funerals for children this year? She has seen loss, she knows it well, SHE has been the rock that so many people have depended on. She told me she hated being considered some expert on the subject, who would? But she sure as shit knows how to love her friends. And she gave me advice about how to love better during tragedy and pain. She gives and gives and gives.

So now she is experiencing a horrible tragedy. Her brain bled. And she hasn’t woken up.

Did you know she happened to be on a segment on the Today Show this morning? It was about spanking children. Do you know how she suggested we punish our children? Have them sit on the floor, face each other and hug for ten minutes. I laughed hard.

And then the tweet I cracked up at yesterday and had to retweet:

RT @AnissaMayhew Don’t tell anyone, but I made $326K from blogging last year but I blew it on bacon and the Jonas Bro fan club.

If you’ve heard about all the recent drama regarding bloggers deserving to be paid, I assume you are laughing and loving it just as much as I did.

So anyway. Not long after that tweet  (hours?) she collapsed. And is now laying in an ICU. Unresponsive.

Life has plodded on today despite this news, as it always seems to.

But then I was driving home from my 3yo’s school today and Ani came on my MP3 player. Not surprisingly, I couldn’t help but think of her.

buildings and bridges
are made to bend in the wind
to withstand the
world,
that’s what it takes
all that steel and stone
is no match for
the air, my friend
what doesn’t bend breaks
what doesn’t bend
breaks

She  knows how to bend, to make room for it all, she has withstood so much. She bends and moves and works against it and surives it all with laughter and love and the purest kind of charity.

we are made to bleed
and scab and heal and bleed again
and
turn every scar into a joke
we are made to fight
and fuck and talk and
fight again
and sit around and laugh until we choke

Anissa is a really funny woman. Really funny. Wit and humor weaves its way through every post, every conversation, every experience. She turns every scar into a joke. And those in pain around her find that they can breathe again when they laugh.

Whether she likes it or not, she has become an example to so many. She is familiar with death. She knows a parent’s purest kind of fear. So many have looked to her. What do we do? How do we do it?

So Anissa, now its you. Our hearts are gripped with fear but we don’t have you to ask what we should do. But I know your example has already put the wheels of charity and support in motion. If there is one small bit of gratitude I have right now, it would be that I am comforted knowing you are getting all the love you’ve given back right now. Karma is your bitch, she owes you BIIIIIG. The love is coming – for you, for your family, for the community you’ve created, and have left waiting for your return.

Wake up Anissa, fight back again. So you can turn this scar into one more joke. You, of all people, can do this.

For any and all information regarding Anissa, please visit the Aiming Low website where her family is posting updates. Also, please be careful about the information you share and be sure it only comes directly from Aiming Low. Finally, please respect their privacy at this very difficult time. Thank you.

And I’m back.

Back from something quite mind-blowing. And now I have the task of summing it all up into words, words, words… words which brought me there in the first place. Words which I’ve learned will wield quite a bit of power if used well. Words which better do every woman there and the entire Type A Mom experience some attempted variety of  justice. No pressure. So here I go.

Connecting with people online comes with the blogging territory. If you didn’t already know that, consider yourself informed. When you blog, you interact, you contribute, you gain readers, make friends, read others, become immersed in peoples lives and then connect on many social media levels again and again and again, everyday. What I mean is: I have a lot of online friends. I don’t care what your “ew, that’s kind of creepy online stalker-ish” thoughts are on such friendships – I have them and I’m proud of them.

So. This weekend, I had the opporitunity to travel deep into the hills of North Carolina and seek out some of these very women to meet in “real” life. Women who, over the course of four days, became more than just words. They became people – with great accents and loveable mannerisms and diverse backgrounds and fabulous shoes and hysterical stories and gorgeous children and genuine hearts. They live, they breathe, they are more than just a 140 character tweet. Yes, all of my apparent imaginary friends had come to life. In Asheville.

Clearly, I was busting with so much squee, glee and enough “OMG” that I saw stars and felt a teeny bit faint. I was, for all intensive purposes, frigging besiiiides myself I tell you.

So let me get down to these amazing people.

First up, I meet Corina at Down to Earth Mama and Ilina at Dirt and Noise. You wouldn’t have thunk it was for the first time. But those are my girls. They were from the minute I met them last Thursday. Smart, funny, sassy, thoughtful, invested… and did I mention smart? So smart.

Upon arrival at the bar the first evening, I was greeted by a delish Type A Mom cocktail along with Kelby and Astacia themselves. Friends continued to arrive, glasses raised, the laughing roared, hugs were traded, wonderful moments all around. That night my heart soared as I found Moosh in Indy, Pundit Mom, Deb on the Rocks, Sugar Jones, Anissa Meyhew, Heather Spohr, Melanie Edwards, Susan Peyton, Angela England, Jennifer James, Mary Davis, Renee Ross and so so many more. And over the weekend, I was introduced to such fabulousness as Cecily Kellogg, Laurie Smith, Rachel Herrscher, Arianne Segerman,  Julie Roads, Barbara Jones and Nirisha.

(Maybe, somehow you don’t know who a few of these women are. But they are kind of a big deal. And not just to me. So go find them, bookmark them and get to know them too. For real. You won’t be sorry.)

That same night, Kelby showed me the Type A Mom magazine where she had dedicated that issue to “two astounding mothers of Type A Mom editors who passed this year”. My mother was one of the two she mentioned. So yes. In that bar that night there were tears too. Thank you Kelby.

Oh wait! There were panels! I mean, they were kind of the point to all of this right? And those panels practically deserve their own post. So much was hashed out. So much was discussed. For instance, we tackled some of the following questions:

How can women involve themselves in politics of any kind as a blogger? What effect can we actually have? What are our expectations for working with companies and PR representatives? How do we advocate for ourselves? What level of professionalism is expected? How do we blog with authenticity? How to we keep it real and keep on writing? How much do we share? What the hell is SEO and how do we get a clue about it? Does blogging mean any kind of long term pay off or future as a writer? Did you know blogger karma always, ALWAYS pays off? Can’t we be ok with being paid in cupcakes and cough syrup or should we demand actual payment for our writing and reviews? Should we be called Mommy Bloggers? Does it matter what we’re labeled?

The panels and the thoughtful discussions they inspired were enough in of themselves. And I learned a great deal. But those panels (as fabulous as they were) weren’t what left the greatest impression on me.

It was community. It was realizing that while I blog at home in my own stay at home solitude, there are women out there who have my back and support me. It was understanding that every blogger – no matter how well known – puts her pants on one leg at a time. We all have insecurities and frustrations with blogging, we all have hopes for our futures with our writing, we all -to the core- appreciate those that read us, we all find our momentum from the most impressive element of this conference: community.

To all of the women there sharing hugs and affirming each other with conversation, thank you for gracefully folding me into this astounding community of ours.

Oh and by the way, I still don’t think I did this whole weekend any justice. To get a better sense, go here and read more. I will be adding posts as I find them so feel free to share some with me in your comments:

Down to Earth Mama

Cutest Kid Ever

Extraordinary Mommy

Triangle Mamas

Secret Agent Mama

Dirt and Noise

Pensieve has a ton of TAM posts linked here too.

And for way way WAY better more pictures, go check out the Type A Moms Flickr Stream.

Oh and by the way again. My favorite sponsors?

I loved the tee I got from Kika Paprika. I guess we all did.

Creative Memories was wonderful to share some amazing software that I am playing with right now (it is currently minimized below this window).

Little Debbie kept me full of chocolate cake. (I mean really, what more could I ask for?)

And UV Skinz made my son very happy with this umbrella hat.

If you’re a mother, busy with kids and work and married and have very little time for making new friends, you might have a good idea of what I am talking about when I refer to “Mom Dating”. And this weekend, as I was moving out one of my dearest friends and neighbors down the street – entirely too aware of the enormous void she would leave in my life – I knew it was time for me to get back in the game. I need to wipe the grape jelly off my kids faces, put something not so wrinkled on, buck up and start “Mom Dating” again.

As an overly eager college grad years ago, finding new friends was never hard to do. School and then work handed over heaps of new friends to sort through and bond with. But as I became (er… I guess it’s categorized as) a “grown-up”, those school and work friends and I have all dispersed, married and created lives of our own. Sure we call, we facebook, we skype. But we don’t have each other right here. For the spontaneous “bring the kids over for movie night, don’t forget the wine” kind of thing. For the “can you watch my kids so I can have the minimum number of eyes on my parts during my annual” times. For even the “if you let me borrow a stick of butter, I’ll share this raw cookie dough with you” moments.

So, to fill this particular empty void in our lives, we “grown ups” have to on-purpose, fully on the prowl, get out and start Mom Dating. It’s actually no different than regular dating except that it’s done on playgrounds and there is no fretting over how long you hold each other afterwards.

Ugh, but I cringe at the idea. Why? Like real dating, there are always some hurdles we must leap before finding “the one”. Like real dating, we have to put ourselves out there and risk rejection. Certainly trial and error has to be a part of the process but, when it comes to Mom Dating, I know what I am up against.

Finding Moms

When I’m scoping for moms, I keep my eyes open all the time for thirty something-ish mothers that kind of seem a little bit like me, trailing a pack of kids who seem no more or less wild than my own. I often find them in bookstores, grocery stores, Target. But really the best places to troll for moms are: playgrounds (it is the ultimate common ground), school or playgroup (your kids know each other, you see each other regularly, its kind of perfect), kid’s extracurriculars (didn’t you know Little League and karate were really all about YOU?), and libraries. One time I totally exchanged digits with a very cool mom at the library. Before she moved away (grumble grumble, Florida can be so transient sometimes) we were even kind of BFFs for awhile.

Giving the Right Impression

So now you’ve spotted a mom. But before she might allow her children to be anywhere near yours, you really need to give the right impression.  Firstly, always have your kids with you. A hassle (I know) but really, like the chick magnet cute dog my husband had in college, its the perfect ice breaker and establishes you as a 100%, genuine mom – just like her. You want to immediately portray that “Hi there! I’m a normal, regular mom too. See all of my screaming monsters that I’m trying reeeally hard not to yell too much at so I don’t scare to you off?”

Don’t Come on Too Strong

So I can usually break the ice and get this far ok. I’ll have my kids with me (check) and am usually not afraid to say something to another mom (er… check.) But, I’m warning you, be very careful at this very initial stage of friendship. When you first talk to another mom, (please, whatever you do) don’t come on too strong. While I’m not afraid to say hi, I am often too quick to try to relate, get comfortable and then (*cringe*) overshare. And that probably comes off kind of stalkerish and weird when I’m all “Hey, howya doin’, I sooo have cramps today, don’t they suck? I think my kid just pooped his pants, I gave him too many raisins, do raisins make your kids poop too much? My name is Caroline by the way, here’s my blogger business card, wanna email me?…” Shocking, isn’t it, when they don’t respond and then quickly shoo their kids away. Don’t come on too strong, ladies. Eeeeasy does it.

Find Something (Anything) Other than Kids in Common

This is the tough part. You’ve found that you’re both past the initial niceties and have launched into the next level of chat about where your children go to school, where you live, what your partners do. But then the real stuff starts to creep in, as it should. And the real stuff is what makes your friendship something… well, real. Where you’re from, how you raise your kids, what kind of values you have and then (*red lights flashing* warning, warning) in come your politics, religion, status stuff (if you even care) and the rest of it. This is about when you’ll learn whether the other mom is a just a ” ‘Hi, how are you?’ when you pass in Target” kind of mom, or a “regular playdates and lets friend each other on facebook” kind of mom, or a for real “pour your heart out late night over bottles of wine, BFF” kind of mom.

Please take note however. You don’t have to have absolutely everything in common. My dear friend who I just packed out of her house was not of the same political “persuasion” as me. And that’s a big one. While we had a couple rocky conversations, our friendship truly superseded that and it was, to the core, at the BFF level. Diversity and difference can make a friendship go round if you’re honest and accepting of one another.

You’re Friends but What About the Rest of the Family?

And now for one final and very important hurdle. While you and this mom chat regularly and truly seem to be connecting – do your children? Do THEY have anything in common with each other? And even if they do, what about your husbands or partners? Can your significant others hang out and enjoy each other’s company on a regular basis too? Because THAT’S the golden ticket friendship right there. If your family and your new friend’s family connect and enjoy watching the game on Sunday over a couple beers and a few burgers on the grill, hold on and don’t let go. That is a rare and important treasure to be sure.

So. Here I go. If you are a mom that happened to get my blogger business card (*smacking head* why can’t I just write my number on a Publix receipt with a crayon like every other mom), please know I mean no harm. I swear, I’m not a weird stalker chick. I’m just a regular mom who is sick of herding cats kids all day, looking for other moms who get it.

Maybe I need to put an ad in the paper. Maybe there is an online mom dating service. Maybe there is speed mom dating up at the local neighborhood clubhouse. If I can, I’ll try it – because taking the risk and finding a one of a kind kindered spirit is always ALWAYS worth the hassles of Mom Dating. Wish me luck.

Yeah well. The Magic didn’t win. In fact, they lost by a lot. And we had to watch the Lakers win the entire finals championship. Not cool.

But the night hardly sucked. Not by a long shot. My sister in law got us access to the VIP party tent. We ate delish coconut crusted chicken, fillet, fried tortellini and rice krispie treats dunked in white chocolate. And as we munched, we checked out the various celebs (Joey Fatone counts, right?), the Mayor (of Orlando) and even a Senator.

And you know I am one for full disclosure around these parts. So let me just put it this way. Morningside Mom’s magical night out was helped along by a bartender at the open bar who pulled a rabbit out of her hat with a very heavy pour. Abraca-frigging-dabra. Good gracious. I certainly don’t get out enough. I’m just glad I didn’t get too close to Joey Fatone post vodka tonics…

(“OHMUHGODHAI!!!!!! Hows Justin??? I can do the ‘ain’t no lie, bye bye bye’ dance, wanna see? I saw you guys in concert once… remember?????”)

So the VIP tent lead to a giddy and giggling Morningside Mom, thrilled to be there within all the fun and hoopla, amoungst friends – and of course I wound up trying to make friends too. Yes. I’ve learned that vodka tonics inspire me to be friends with everyone in my section. I mean, what’s their problem? Why don’t they want to chat – be neighborly? It’s just a game. Sheeesh. Apologies specifically to Scott at the end of our row. I am not sure how much of the game I let him watch. (Smacking forehead now.)

Nevertheless. They lost. But I won. An awesome night out to be sure. Thanks to my sister for giving me a hint of a life for just one night.

I have this amazing group of friends. There are about twenty of us. We live all over, our backgrounds are varied, but from the beginning our hopes were the same. We all wanted to be mothers. And while we all began trying to conceive our children, we found one another online on a message board. That was almost 4 years ago. In that time, we have shared some of our most intimate details, we have been in touch with one another daily, we have become a sisterhood of sorts. We seek each other out whenever we’re near, some go on vacation together, some talk on the phone everyday. We’ve celebrated the births of many babies, we’ve stood by fertility heartbreaks, we’ve shared the routine and mundane.

Yesterday I found out one of my dear friends from this group tragically lost her 9 month old baby daughter. At this point, they suspect something related to SIDS took her life. She passed away during her nap. And so my dear wonderful friend is currently living her worst nightmare. Tomorrow, she buries her baby girl.

Since hearing this news, my life initially halted. I broke down repeatedly. But it seemed in a vaccuum, with no one around me feeling the depth of such a loss. And then, because her death doesn’t directly affect my daily life here, I was forced to continue hiccuping along. Her daughter is gone but I still have to get milk for tomorrow, my 5 year old still needs to be picked up from school and we are still actually having people over for dinner.

But really, I have wanted to hop on the next plane out of here. My heart isn’t here right now. It’s in a million pieces surrounding my friend in Iowa. While she sits in her home, staring at an empty crib.

This little girl leaves such beautiful memories behind. She gave my friend 9 amazing months of sweet smiles and happy blue eyes. She always said she was the best baby in the world. And I agreed with her. She slept so well. She never fussed. She adored her older sister. She laughed, she smiled, she carried on gladly. My friend’s daily updates on facebook would read something like this: “I’m watching my girl naw on a carrot in her high chair and laugh. She is just so cute!” That baby girl was simply a happy, happy child. And I know that happiness had everything to do with her very wonderful mother.

Thank God for the rest of my friends, however. Some of them are able to fly to Iowa for the funeral. Some of us will be there for her. I am forever grateful. Because we should be there. We have shared ovulating, seven week old heartbeats, ultrasound pictures, and finally, joyfully we’ve ushered so many babies into this world. When my two year old was born, they were told immediately – and they posted his picture and celebrated in their respective corners of the world. They were the first to call or send things. These women love their babies.

And now one of these babies has died. Its unbearable. And so part of our group is flying into Iowa from New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Maryland, they are driving from far corners of the Midwest, they are leaving their babies with husbands to group together in a potentially sketchy Comfort Inn they found on priceline. These women, my friends, will be there to surround my dear friend and hold on to her grief as she buries her girl. One of the babies has died.

Oh my heart is broken. I wish I could be there. I am so sorry I can not be. My friend. Her loss. Its horrible.

But the sun keeps coming up and my kids need me to help me with their homework. Life goes on. And it should. And it will for my friend too. She is strong and will move through this pain. One day it won’t hurt as much to breathe. I hope I can help her enough from where I sit here, so far away, in Florida.

Usually I have a point to my posts. Some sort of bottom line or moral to the story. But I don’t have one today. This post is simply my public profession that I am mourning the life of a beautiful 9 month old girl. So no words of wisdom today. There is simply no point to the death of a child. None.

So, you can’t enough of the NYC Vivienne Tam week, huh? Then please go read the posts on my fellow blogger’s sites. They did a great job and its fun to see this experience from several perspectives. Remember that some of us were parent/mom bloggers, some were fashion or accessory bloggers and others were technology bloggers. All were amazing people and I could not have picked a better group to experience this with!

The Art of Accessories
Moosh in Indy (She has video of our initial reactions to the surprise gift too!)
Tech Starlet
A Mom in Red High Heels
Notebooks
Techdiva
Tech Mamas
Mobile PC World
The Mama Bird Diaries

Of course these are not the only bloggers who attended or the only posts about the experience. There were and will be more posts. These are what I grabbed for the time being. (And NYC bloggers, share your posts here if I missed yours!)

Oh and are you STILL wishing you could get a bit of the Vivienne Tam experience for yourself? Well, stay tuned. I may have something to share with you all. Don’t get your panties in a bunch though - its not the HP mini itself. But its still pretty damn cool. You might even see what I’m talking about on some of the sites above. I’ll be posting about this “tech chic” giveaway very soon.

For more information about the HP products I review, please visit my HP Update page.

After an evening trying to whip myself together into some sort of presentable look for fashion week, myself and the 20 other bloggers tromped out into the rain to go see the Vivienne Tam show.

What did I expect? Some very beautiful, thin, doe eyed girls trooping around in fabulous outfits and a crew of fashionistas getting it so much more than I am, and eyeing everyone up and down. I doubted I’d see VT herself, but what do I know about how these events go down…

And what happened?

Well, we arrived, were escorted right in and handed glasses of champagne. And there was Vivienne Tam standing with all the models in front of a row of Touchsmart HP screens! After many pictures, the models moved on and the crowd mingled. The wonderful DWJ from the Art of Accessories grabbed my hand (I love this woman, by the way) and managed to get us in for a picture with Vivienne Tam herself!

Um. Is this my life? Here we are. (I have no idea what happened with my hair. I am clearly channeling “A Flock of Seagulls”. Whatever. I’m standing next to her!)

And then a few minutes later, they lined up all the bloggers with Vivienne Tam and took endless pictures. This sounds silly but I totally had a red carpet moment all of the sudden. Little ol’ me. Whoda thunk. I don’t have a big group shot now but will post one when I do.

Anyway, we saw the amazing collection. Its absolutely gorgeous. I fell in love with a beautiful leather dress of hers and was amazed by the beauty of the detail in her dresses.

A Mom in Red High Heels and I checked out the Touchsmart PCs. We pulled up our sites and took pics of ourselves at the event.

We talked to interesting people, learned more about the inspiration of her collection (which I hope to post more about in the future) and just generally had an amazing time.

I think what impressed me most was Vivienne herself. She was so taken aback that we were all women bloggers there to support her show. She said it meant so much to have women supporting her this way and was extremely appreciative of us being there. I said to her that women bloggers absolutely adore this mini and all want one. Her face absolutely lit up. She spun around to some very nice man behind her. “Did you hear that?? The bloggers love the Mini!!!” She was genuine, she was warm, she was truly grateful to have us there.

Grateful. Yes. My words exactly.

What an amazing evening.

For more information about the HP products I review, please visit my HP Update page.

A friendship is a sacred thing. It is made scared by all that you share with and recognize in the other. And it is also made sacred by all that you do not share, as your differences challenge you to listen and grow in ways that you haven’t had to before. I can certainly appreciate this aspect of friendship right now. How come? One of my closest friend’s is a Republican. So, “viva la difference”, correct? We’re trying.

When you have an acquaintance, you know the touchy topics to avoid: religion, finances, family issues, and politics. With surface friendships, this isn’t such a hard thing to do. We would rather focus on the fun stuff like soccer practice or the next moms’ night out together anyway.

But my friend is more than just an acquaintance. She is something far deeper than that. She is someone my family shares holidays with, family trips with, and endless football Sunday afternoons with. We live on the same street. We both have two children. Our husbands happened to attend the same college. Our birthdays are one day apart. We both struggle with our mortgages, with coaxing our children to sleep, with making sure they are happy at school.

And yet, she is a Republican and I am a Democrat. Not only do we belong to opposing parties, we proudly stand by our political values. There’s no budging us and, needless to say, neither of us will be checking the same boxes come November 4th.

So, for the sake of our friendship, I am guessing your advice might be to avoid political discussions at all costs, correct? But here’s the thing. We are close friends. There is no topic left untouched. Nor should there be. Over bottles of wine long after the children are asleep, its inevitable that religion, finances and skeletons in our respectable closests come right on out for consideration. And yup, politics certainly jumps in there too, sure to shake up our wine induced ”heart to hearts”, while our families sleep on.

So how do we do it? How do we hold onto our friendship in the midst of a deeply emotional Presidential battle? I would not say it’s easy, and it certainly hasn’t been for others as well.

The blogger Queen of Spain writes about “outing” herself politically to acquaintances, and noting their varied reactions. However, it seems utterly impossible to avoid political chatter right now. Better than a season premier of “Lost”, the Nightly News has most of us wide-eyed and at the edge of our seats every evening. We can’t help it, our politics are bound to slip into even the briefest of conversations.

And how many of us are so fed up with the opposing party that we are potentially willing to lose friends? Should our political values really come before our friendships? Ilina at Dirt and Noise certainly is struggling with this very issue and I could not sympathise more with her.

Shannon McDowell (writing for Ezine) and Laurie Weigler (writing for eHow) both offer us suggestions while navigating the choppy waters of a politically threatened friendship.

• Respectfully and tactfully discuss your choice using facts – not rhetoric.
• During the conversation, keep humor in and emotion out (if possible).
• Don’t attack or try to convert the other.
• Be sensitive to your friend’s beliefs and respect them.
• Involve the group in the conversation, make it less about one against the other.
• Agree to disagree – remember we each have the right to our own opinion.
• Reconnect after the conversation with a hug, laugh or handshake to establish that “yup, we’re still ok.”

Finally Mom-101 points out that while elections can truly test some friendships, we usually have more in common with one another than what we don’t. And this is the very point I come to at the end of the day with my friend.

Yes, for the next few weeks, there will be an elephant - and a donkey – in the room with my friend and I.  However, when we sit down and discuss our hopes and dreams, we are truly so much more alike than we are different. And as for our politics? She challenges me and I her. Diverse opinions are what makes this world go around. Preaching to our safe choir of friends will not allow us to grow. A partisan friendship such as ours isn’t easy right now, but we are both better for it. And at the end of the day, we still find ourselves on the same street, with the same children, holding on to the same hopes and dreams for our families.

Cross posted at Type A Moms.