It's the Little Things ...

Sean took the day off today to go to the track. (For you non-locals, that's Indianapolis Motor Speedway - it's the month of May, ya know.) Anyway, our friend works for the IRL, so when Sean walked into his office to meet up with him, the receptionist turned out to be someone we went to high school with.

Whoa.

Something similar happened last fall when we bought a dishwasher off of someone on Craig's List (the coolest place ever, better than Walmart). When we went to pick it up - we found out we were buying it off of a guy that we went to high school with.

Another time I was walking around with my friend, Lisa, going to garage sales in her neighborhood and walked right into the garage of a guy I had worked with at the ad agency years before.

I love it when stuff like that happens. I think it's fun! (I know - you're thinking that I need to get out more often.) I just love off-the-wall incidents and happenings. Yeah - because I don't have enough of that within the confines of my own home, huh?

I know I've said this before, but I love making connections with people over unexpected things. I don't so much love the big deals in life - it's the little things that just rock.

Just like people and their personalities - I love those little idiosyncrasies that make a person who they are and urge them to act in a certain way. And I love that each of my friends brings something neat and special to my life - whether they even know it or not.

Like - my friend, Mary always makes me feel like I'm just the neatest person. She always greets me or leaves messages that start out with, "Hey, beautiful girl!" and I'm telling you, she couldn't be any sweeter if someone poured her out of a honey jar.

My neighbor (and rock), Susan, is always telling me that I'm a good mom, that I'm doing a good job - even when I'm clearly barely keeping my head above water. It's not just that she says it, she makes me feel it. And believe me, she sees me (and hears me!) at my parenting worst.

Lesa doesn't let me go long at all without pulling me out for "friend" time, which is such a blessing. If she didn't call or e-mail me to get me out every week, I would be (more of) a blubbering idiot.

My other Lisa, whom I've known since toddlerhood, often calls me on her way home from work because she just has to get this out before she comes undone ("Oh my gosh, I just have to tell you about this ...") - knowing that I will somehow, from some experience, be able to relate to how she's feeling and get down in it with her.

Another childhood friend, April, is always encouraging me to write for a living and work on getting published. Always. (Someday, my dear, you will be so proud of me.)

My Texan pal (and former neighbor in Houston), Kay, makes me feel every day like I'm worth the effort. :-) Through our move back here and her move back to Dallas, she's been so diligent in not only keeping in touch with me, but coming to visit me, supporting me in what I'm going through, and just taking the time to know what's going on in my life all the time.

Then there are Nicky and Christie, who are both also raising special-needs boys around the same age as Seth and just get it. The fears, the victories, the exhaustion, the battles, the intense joy, all of it. I don't have to explain anything to them, they just know.

I have new friends entering my life all the time, and I'm loving discovering the corners of my being that they are revealing that I'd never noticed on my own about myself. God has such an awesome way of highlighting who we are in the most interesting ways, even when we can't see it ourselves, especially when we can't see it within ourselves.

So to all of my awesome friends (including the ones who were not mentioned by name) - I love who you are, what you see in me, and how you make me feel about myself.