Strength

This is a long one...
(that's what she said)

On the heels of my last post, I thought I'd write about something regarding a good friendship, strong people and the healing art of forgiveness. It will also be about a particularly difficult time in my life and how it changed me. This will be a two part post.

I have an extremely good friend that I love very much. She and I met three years ago at work (a job we both left due to it being extremely retarded).

When I first met her, I was sitting in our boss's office getting the spiel on my new job. She walked in and looked me up and down and said, "Oh. Hi." And then mentally dismissed me.

And that was it. I was scared of her. And this is the part where she will get ticked when she reads it. My friend is short; in stature, not in personality. But sweet mercy I was scared of her.

As the days and weeks passed by and she trained me, we found out how much we had in common. We laughed non-stop and actually got in trouble many times for being too loud (neither of us can control the volume of our voice).

A few weeks later I finally worked up the courage to ask her about something that I'd been wondering about. She walked with a limp and always wore tennis shoes. I knew something had happened but I wasn't sure how to broach the topic. It wasn't just curiosity to know what was going on physically. It was a curiosity to know where she drew her strength from. She was and is without a doubt the person in my life with the fastest temper, quickest laugh and strongest opinions. Her tenacity is unmatched.

We got to talking and she explained to me that she had been diagnosed with an extremely rare form of cancer in previous years and had battled it, and won. The story is much longer than that, but the cancer isn't the point of this post. It's what she did with her life after.

She was left to face significant challenges. Significant.
I would have crawled into a bathtub and drowned in a sea of spahetti o's.
But her?
She went back to work. She worked out. She re-doubled her efforts at being a good friend and family member. She got angry. She laughed. She re-learned how to drive and walk. She learned to adjust to having specific handicaps. She was open and honest about what happened to her. In short, she made freakin' lemonade from lemons.

Damnit.

There go all of my excuses to hold onto the past and bitch about the things that have gone wrong in my life.

She thinks she hasn't let go of it. I think she never will. How can she? Why should she? The best thing I can say to you, my lovely friend is this:

Hold on to the survival. You made it. You are beautiful. You are strong. You inspire people more than you even realize. You are smarter, more determined and funnier than the majority of the general population. And you kicked cancer's ass. I'm proud of you every day.

I'm writing about this today for a couple of reasons:

1. In response to my friend's blog
2. Thinking about the past a lot lately (the beginning of May tends to make me reflect)
3. Thinking about the future