bluegeek | December Days of Happy #5

Today I am happy because of my friends.

I hosted a small party today and had the opportunity to enjoy spending time with some fun and interesting people that I get to call my friends. There was lots of joking around, laughter, and stories (and lots and lots of food prepared by yours truly, but more on that another day).

So for today I am going to write a small blurb about how I met some of my closest friends.

I met E in middle school. We both had the same 6th period gym class and 6th period was when the entire school took 10 minutes for silent reading time. The day I met E, she asked me about my book. At the time I was reading The Crystal Star by Vonda McIntyre. I used to read any just about any Star Wars novel I could get my hands on. E told me she loved Star Wars too and thus a friendship was born. At this point we've been friends for over half our lives. She is living in France right now and I miss her, but Skype is an awesome solution.

I met J during college orientation. That was back in the days when I could eat ice cream and since my school made it's own ice cream on sight, I decided to try it out. J was standing in front of me in line and we struck up a conversation. The orientation was a 2-day affair involving an overnight stay in one of the dorms and it turned out that we were assigned the same dorm. We wound up continuing to talk that evening and decided to exchange email addresses so we could keep in touch and maybe hand out once classes were officially in session. When I gave her my email address (which at the time contained a reference to Jaina Solo, yes, I am that much of a geek) J's immediate response was "Isn't that Han and Leia's daughter's name?" And once again, thanks to Star Wars, another friendship was born. J and I went on to become close friends and even roommates during college and have stayed close ever since.

I met M during my freshman year of college through my roommate. M was in an astronomy class with my roommate and one day when roomie, J, and I were eating lunch in the packed dining hall, M wandered by looking for a table to eat at and ended up joining us. We all talked and we hit it off quite well, I must say. M is pretty much responsible for any outdoors activities that I take part in. She's taken me hiking, crabbing, and fishing, and taught me how to clean and cook the fish we caught. She is one of the biggest influences that inspired me to work on my cooking skills because she is an excellent cook and baker. It's almost enough to make me forgive her for forcing me to listen to Twilight on a long car trip, thereby making it impossible for me to not borrow the audiobook myself so I could finish the damn thing ~~and all the sequels~~. She is also responsible for introducing me to LARping and one of the best communities of people that I can imagine. This community includes...

S, A, and D who I met and became friends with. They are incredible people that have enriched my life in so many ways. They make me think and introduce me to new ideas, support me through my various ups and downs of life, and most especially they listen. S trained me for a while in the boff weapon fighting that we do in our LARP. I would always look forward to the days when I could make it to practice and get to work and laugh with him. Meeting him led to meeting A and D, and they make an awesome unit of awesomeness. A is partially responsible for my renewed/continued interest in fandom, which I can never stop being grateful for. She also makes me want to get a kitten despite my allergies *shakes fist* They live a couple hours drive away from me and every time I get in the car to visit them I find that driving is so much more pleasant than I usually find it because I know that I get to see them at the end of it. It's all part of the therapy. Also? D has introduced me to lots of cool video games and his creative mind stuns me every time I see him :-D

And finally, S2. I met her in college. In our "bugs 'n drugs" class (aka Microbiology and pharmacology) we sat next to one another one day, struck up a conversation, and wound up study partners and soon after that, friends. She happened to live one town over from me, so I got to see her on school breaks as well, which was wonderful when I was otherwise rather cut-off from my main support system of friends. We continue to live near each other and she is geographically closest friend. It isn't unusual for us to spontaneously call the other to go out for coffee when we both have a day off or for drinks after a long shift at work. We even won trivia night at the local pub once :) I also especially appreciate the fact that since we work in the same field, I can talk to her about things that I don't really have any other outlet for and know that she'll "get it." This is incredibly valuable to me because there are times when my job is just absolutely draining and having someone to debrief with is a huge relief.

So those are some of the people that I am honored to call my friends. I am so very, very lucky to have them in my life, and they make me very happy.