An amazing week

I use that word a bit too much. Amazing. My boyfriend amazes me, my friends amaze me, my kids amaze me. But I mean it. I do sometimes have to pinch myself before I can believe this is really my life.

I went to Sacramento on the 24th. Ever have one of those vacations when you actually get to do everything you wanted and see all the people you love? That happened to me last week.

When I was 13 and 14, I lived two houses away from Laurie. She and I got to be very good friends, and I spent nearly every day with her. Her mom, Judy, was very sweet, and relaxed, and treated me like a daughter. She also let me have cigarettes, which was a huge plus for me at that age. No one cared, at Laurie's house, where you ended up falling asleep, or whether you threw your shoes on the floor in the living room. My mom, by sharp contrast, was controlling, and rude, and very into everything being perfectly neat, and done, and gosh, sleeping in on Saturday was LAZY. Laurie's sister Rhonda was older, and also sweet, although you could tell she had a tough side, and I was sure I never wanted to fuck with her. I liked being on her good side. She treated me like a sister. Often Laurie and I would sneak out her window when I spent the night at her house, and we'd come back in some nights drunk, and just lie down on her floor and crash. Laurie's little brother, Wes, was kind of obnoxious, but he also treated me like family. When he was 12 he bummed a cigarette off me and didn't inhale it. I got so irritated with him - I said, "You're WASTING it." I made him inhale the next one he bummed, and it made him so sick he told me later he didn't try smoking again for years. My mom loved Laurie's family, and was fine with me being over there all the time, and really didn't have much of a clue what I did there, which was unusual and lovely.

We moved to the central coast when I was fourteen, and leaving Laurie was horrible. Leaving her whole family was horrible. Yes our hometown was small and boring, and yes, it got up to 110 degrees (F) in the summer, and yes, there was NOTHING TO DO except drink and cruise the mall. But I loved that family unconditionally, and they loved me. Laurie and I kept in touch via letters. Lots of letters. Even when I lived two doors down from her, I wrote her letters, and when my family went on trips I sent her long detailed accounts of our travels. Well, of the people I met on the travels, mostly.

When I was eighteen I lived with her sister for a while, and every time I saw Laurie it was like no time had passed at all. We were still close, and she was still like the sister I never had. She's come to visit me, over the years, never often enough, and never for long enough, and she now has three kids - like me - and we still talk regularly. Last time I visited her was just over a year ago, and I didn't get to see her brother or sister, and although seeing Laurie was so good, I missed her family, too.

On the 24th, when I got to the airport in Sacramento, she had Brock with her, because he got there the night before I did. There's something really cool about introducing two very important people in your life to each other. I'd been wanting them to meet for a while, and I probably drove them nuts, asking, "So what do you think?" Of course they got along well, and being in a house with the two of them felt like I was home after a very long journey. I don't know how else to describe it.

My birthday happened, while I was there, and we had cake and celebrated, and Laurie took me out for a manicure and a pedicure, during which we never stopped talking. But it never felt forced, or like work, or like I had to try. It was awesome. Then on the 28th we had a party.

Growing up I always had friends from different places. One of my childhood friends I met when I was 3, and she was always sent to private Catholic school while I went to public. Every birthday party I had I invited her, but she always felt a little awkward being surrounded by my school friends. I was always trying to bring all these people I loved together. I still am. Laurie visited me when I lived in Morro Bay, and she met all my school friends then. When we were talking about who to invite to the party I got onto facebook and started looking at the locations of the people I've met over the years. Many of them were in the bay area. So we invited them all. I invited Brenda, a girl who lived next door to me when I was 3, a girl who was better friends with my older brother and sister, because I was just a chubby little baby then. We invited Laurie's brother, sister, and her mom, of course. So many of them came.

Brock barbecued (and yes, there were AMAZING little sausages wrapped in bacon), and alcohol was consumed (yeah, not by me), and there was really good solid conversation, and catching up on the years, and not one person there made me feel I had to try, which is saying a lot, considering how socially inept I am. Brenda talked about my family, and her memories of my mom and dad together, which is something a bit special, since they divorced when I was seven. She also introduced me to her 8 year old daughter, whose name was Sarah, and she told her daughter, "This is the original Sarah!" Because she named her after me. Then she gave me a present to open, and inside was a pink unicorn and two drawings of unicorns - one from her daughter and one from her son. Judy gave me windchimes, and Rhonda and I laughed so much my face hurt. Laurie got a bit sloshy, and as she always has done, she went sweeter than I thought possible, and I received many hugs. Wesley, her brother, and I got to talk for the first time in over ten years, and when I said I felt like they were family, he said "You ARE family!"

Everyone loved Brock, as I do (well not quite like I do, that would not have gone over well at ALL), and he was there with me for all of it, talking and laughing, and listening to the stories and the recollections almost like he was interested. I like to think he was as comfortable as I was, but I may be hoping for too much with that. Then when the party ended and Laurie fell asleep on the couch, he and I stayed up til 3, talking, curled up in bed together, with all the good memories going round in my head and the person I love the most right there next to me. I'm not sure it's possible to be happier than that.