Number 25

Almost two years ago I started a folder on my Mac entitled “Personal Journals.” It was my intention at that time to one day share the documents encased inside. It’s taken me a year and a half to come to this point and as I watch the documents rise in number (I’m now in the twenties, fast approaching thirty) I find myself like a mother holding on to her child as she walks to her first day of kindergarten. Then, just as I’m sure your mother has before, I freeze and remember we left the paper sack lunch on the kitchen counter. What is more important in that moment? To turn the minivan around as fast as possible to provide your loved one a meal or watch as your first born takes their first steps into academia? Not to say either is a bad option, but there will always be the kid whose mom packed an extra snack pack just in case. So you trust in the good of mankind, of childkind, to accept what was made out of your own flesh, out of your own brokenness, and have some hope that it will be well received and shared. My words are the offspring of my life right now. I realize people some will look at this blog and immediately write me off as one of “those types.” Trust me, you can’t give me any more judgment than I have given myself before. Against all insecurities and fears I am choosing to stay in this moment and watch my words leave my heart and take their first steps into the real world trusting that it will bear some kind of fruit in the future.

So I must begin this blog by giving credit to the two kids who have encouraged me to not just write but to finally press submit: Marianna and Katy. You can’t have a conversation with me without my mentioning one of these two wonderful women. Marianna and I became friends freshman year through Stewart dorms and fast approached best friend status. When Marianna and I decided to go different sororities I had no fear in knowing it would not change our friendship. It’s cheesy, but an unbreakable sisterhood already bound us. We’ve spent nearly every football game in her parent’s tent and we may go weeks without having intentional conversation but we always start right where we left off with no ill feelings. Marianna and I tell each other like it is and I love her for not-so-subtly telling me to start writing for real this time. We’ve laughed and we’ve cried and we’ve loved all along. She’s the kind of friend that knows when you need caramel cake and knows when you need an apple, her encouragement always comes at the right time in the right amount.

Katy and I start our story a little later but that has never made me doubt the genuineness of our friendship. I accredit a conversation over coffee with Katy as part of the turning point in my life last semester. It was the first time in a while that I sat down with someone who I thought had it all together and realized, “Oh my, she is just as broken as I am.” I say that with all love and sincerity in my heart, and she knows this, because our friendship revolves around redemption. We get excited about it and seek it in every scenario. We are the “Kate and Allie” show. We are those annoying friends who finish each other’s sentences and think the same absurd thoughts then giggle uncontrollable at how silly we are. So to make a long story short, I love these girls and I wanted my first blog to be about them because they implored the confidence in me to finally stop saving documents and instead submit them.

So here is to friends who not only laugh with you and tell you the things you want to hear but also cry with you and tell it to you like it is…

And to friends who share their blogspot with you.

- Allie