Day Ten: Gratitude

Sometimes you find yourself thrown into a sea of strangers. You feel alien and alone. When I started working for the Library in North County I was the proverbial Pisces out of water. Anything familiar was like a lifeboat to be clutched onto with a death grip. Into this maelstrom of my life dropped a cruise ship of salvation, in the embodiment of an old acquaintance. The first week I was at the library I looked up and saw a familiar face, Kim, former friend of a friend. I casually said, "Hi Kim," as if we had just seen each other last month at Target.

Kim stopped dead in her tracks and studied me. At first I thought she did not recognize me, but later she told me she was stunned to see me. I was like a apparition from the past and I just bowled right over her with the , "Oh my God, how are you..." ramble. I think Kim said maybe four words the whole conversation.

The next time she came back to the library I was equally as effusive, and she was equally as overwhelmed by my excitement at finding a friend in the last place I thought to find one. I was like an Irish Setter with a three year old. I think she suggested we do lunch sometime just to get away from me, but she stuck to her word. After one lunch and a little less Tempest, Kim decide I wasn't so bad and we started doing lunch every couple of weeks.

While in North County Kim and I ate lunch at all the good the Italian restaurants. We reacquainted ourselves and caught up on the fate of those we had known from a very rowdy period of both our lives. And I taught her to knit. Her blunt assessment of situations are often just the tonic I need for the hyper-fakeness I assume when working with the public. We have no compunction about laughing at each other foibles and faux pas. I was worried once I transferred to West County we would not see each other as much, but instead we discovered a whole new area to eat lunch. Today we ate at Dickey's Barbecue Pit. We had smoked turkey, knitted, and laughed.

From being just a familiar face, to being one of my nearest and dearest I am so grateful for Kim. As far as I am concerned she dropped out of the sky when I needed her most.