Julie and I met in the Junior League. We were on the same committee and I thought she was hysterical. We didn’t bond ,though, until my husband passed away and she shared with me that she had lost her fiancé a few years ago. She was the only other young woman I knew who had been through something similar.
As tragic as my loss was, I’m grateful that Julie was there. She then helped me get a job with her company because I needed to make more money to cover my ridiculous mortgage.
She showed me the ropes and then taught me how to have fun doing it. We would meet for lunch or shopping or coffee breaks during the work day. She introduced me to some of the things I love the most: Bond No. 9 perfume, knockout roses, designer jeans, cabbage soup (for fitting into those jeans).
She’s stunningly beautiful and literally looks 10 years younger than she is. At times I think of her as a friend and at other times I think of her as a cool big sister.
We laughed more than I have laughed since I was a child.
One of my funniest memories is the morning Julie called and said she just took her Ambien instead of her allergy pill. It still makes me laugh out loud when I think about it. I had to go pick her up and babysit her, so she wouldn’t drive or do anything else that seemed like a good idea to her and no one else. Oh, the shenanigans!
Friends like Julie, the ones you feel a connection to deep in your soul, are so rare. My heart hurts when I start to reminisce. But even if I moved back to Little Rock, I still wouldn’t have my Julie. She has moved away. It’s true, I’m learning, that you can’t go home again.
Coming to terms with the fact that this was a special friendship is helping me finally come to terms with my new home. Two years after moving here I’m just now starting to reach out and make new friends. None of them will be Julie. This town will never be Little Rock.
But this is home now. I have my play group, I have great new friends, I have this blog and most importantly I have a wonderful husband and gorgeous baby girl.
We won’t be here forever, and wherever we go there will be new/different people. Maybe if it didn’t take me two years to open up I would’ve found a new Julie by now. Probably not.