Blindsided!!!

I haven’t written in a long time…life takes over and you forget how fulfilling it is to get your thoughts down until an arbitrary stranger reads your blog and sends a message saying how much he enjoyed it…and maybe 2, 3 or 4 years have gone by and you can’t even remember what you had written…so thank you kind sir….

I firmly believe that there are no coincidences…and if we are open to life and follow the signs we enjoy life at a completely different level…the book The Celestine Prophecy speaks about synchronicity and the fact that we are exactly where we need to be to learn and do what ever we need to learn and do in this existence…I read that book almost two decades ago and that (among other things) stuck with me…when we are quiet and follow the ‘signposts’ amazing things happen…

I have a school friend that I haven’t seen in close to a decade…we weren’t particularly close at school she was a brilliant firey artist and I was a reader studying history and geography.  Many years after graduation and college my job had me traveling to a different continent where she lived and we met up…

In between my meetings we shopped, she took me to tea and introduced me to a now much loved favourite Darjeeling tea…we did lunch and we laughed and spoke about the love of her life…her very successful work…her upcoming wedding… her dress etc..

Life took me in a different direction and I moved to Antigua with my then 4 year old Gianna and I no longer traveled  much at all…we still kept in touch although not regularly and as the years wore on and careers and kids and life took over we lost touch even though we always knew where to find each other…

Over the past week she has been on my mind and I thought of the last time we were together in the same space and what we spoke about, my impressions, the things I admired about her, the things about her artistic and firey spirit that inspired me…

Simultaneously, having been reminded about my blog (not that I really forgot but…) I knew it was time to pull it out, dust it off (read what I had written in the past) and write again…This morning during a run I thought about what I would write about…and I couldn’t come up with anything but I had this feeling that by the end of the day it would come to me….and this time unfortunately it did and now the words are just pouring out of me…

Had a very busy day at the office and managed to grab lunch at my desk after 2pm…while eating I started scrolling through my social media accounts which I don’t have much time for these days (I post and respond to direct notifications but don’t have time to scroll)…and totally unexpectedly I was hit by a lightening bolt…Suddenly I was looking at a photo of my friend with her husband who had posted it as a tribute to her…and having read the post several times I realized that she was no longer here with us…

And it hit me I mean really hit me…the memories flooded and I just couldn’t believe it…We had lost touch and there are certainly a plethora of friends much closer than I was…but I was floored and saddened that we would never see that cheeky grin or hear that laugh ever again….

So my first piece after being away so long is dedicated to her and her amazing husband and babies and to all of us who love and miss her…his strength is amazing and even though we met only that one time before the wedding almost a decade ago we have promised to stay in touch…

So today I am grateful for health and my babies and my P….and for people that touch your life for how ever long they touch it…for what I learned from her…

I have a friend who teases me because she says it only takes one glass of wine (or other spirit shhhh) and I start telling people that  I love them…lol (just to be clear I am not professing love to random strangers only to persons I actually love lol)

Well tonight I drink a toast to my friend as I try to accept the fact that she is no longer here….you will be missed!!! The world was definitely a better place for having had you in it….love you my friend…xx