I prayed. It finally occured to me that I should pray for a friend from the Lord.

Within a week I was invited to a Mary Kay party. I don't like make up parties. Never have. Tupperware parties were always fun. The games and stuff. Always liked that. Make up parties......well, no offense to Mary Kay women out there.....just not for me. I went anyway. I didn't know why, just felt like it, I guess.

There was this girl. Well, this woman. My age. Three kids the exact same ages as mine. Strong Christian. Her husband was a Bible College graduate. VERY talkative. Waaaay, more than me. We got gabbing. Hit it off immediately.

She was born and raised Jewish. She accepted Jesus when she was 18. She was promptly disowned by her family. Wow, this girl is seeeerious! I felt bad for the disowning part but she was strong. Stronger than me but humble. We became fast friends. Buds. I always had this intense interest in the Old Testament and I never knew why. She knew the Old Testament. Alot. She explained all the feasts and holidays and how they are fulfilled in Christ. She wasn't pushy. Just answered what I asked. I loved it.

But boy, could this girl TALK. I thought I was bad. She took conversation to a new level. She even apologized for it. She called it, "coveting the conversation". Hmmmm, new concept. We got together. Our kids became friends. I helped her clean her house, which was the bane of her existance, and she talked. I brought her food, because her husband was in construction and kept losing his job, and she talked. I watched her youngest child when she had to do errands, and she talked after she got back. It might seem that I would be annoyed by that but I wasn't. Not at all. She had alot to say and I wanted to hear it. She had a bad habit of talking fast and interrupting, two bad habits I picked up from her. It didn't matter when we talked to each other, which we did all the time, but it became an issue with other people. People who knew us couldn't believe we were really close friends because we were so much alike.

She called everyday. I looked forward to her calls. My husband didn't like it. I think he was used to having me all to himself and saw her as an interloper. I saw her as the answer to my prayer. She found out I was a good listener and started spilling about some emotional issues she had. That opened the door for me to share some of mine. I told her about the eating disorders. I didn't do that anymore but I had never had anyone to talk to about it. I just unloaded the whole story. We became very close. They came over for dinner and we went over for dinner at their house. Her kids were more wound up than mine (remembering that my son was diagnosed ADHD) so I could only deal with a certain amount of that. But I loved her. I really loved her. She was my best friend. My bud. For twenty years.

After they moved, it seemed like all the Bible Studies began to fall apart. Not right away but the floundering started. Another young woman, her husband a gym teacher at the Christian school, took up the Tuesday and Thursday studies. I still went to both of those and the Asst. Pastor was teaching a study at our house on Wednesdays. People still came but the laziness about homework was getting worse. I was starting to get frustrated with the increasing lukewarmness but I kept my mouth shut. I wasn't the leader and I was still being told to simmer down. Well, not in those words but........

I still didn't have any buds but I guess the ladies in my study were my friends. We didn't do much together, or really call each other, or anything, but at least I had some 'sorta' friends that liked to get together every week. There were a couple in the group who liked to call me a little. They acted like they wanted to be friends but all they really wanted was someone to listen while they ranted and raved about their husbands and kids. Funny, both of them are divorced today. What a surprize.

About a year after the first family moved, the second family moved. People come and go so quickly around here! Dorothy said that about Munchkin Land. I say that about here. People come to go to Bible College, Christian School, the big church down the street. If it weren't for the Christians in this town no one would ever come here.

There was no one to lead the study. None of the women were strong enough to take it up. They looked to me. The Big Mouth. I cringed. Sure I love to throw my opinion around, but LEAD? Yikes! I was desperate. My desire to keep the Thursday group going, my favorite one, was fierce. More important than the fear.

Okay, I'll do it. I went out and got a leaders book and enough books for the rest of the group. The leaders book had the answers in it!!!!! That was CHEATING! Well, I would only look at the answers AFTER I had done the study for myself. What is that? Perfectionism? Whatever it was, I followed that rule. The homework was so easy. I loved it. It was leading the group that was hard. No one would think that of me now, so forthright and bold, but back then....."what they might say", "what they might think", what a hindrance.

I studied and studied. Suddenly I wasn't just doing more homework. Suddenly I was knowing some scripture! Really knowing it. When questions were asked I was beginning to be able to answer them scripturally. When I couldn't I would promise to find the answers for them by next week. I should have told them to buy a concordance and look it up themselves, but I was too focused on being perfect.

It wasn't enough. Nothing was enough. The group was folding. Two women I was closest with in the group, the two who were the most knowledgable about scripture besides me took me aside. "We don't like how the group is going", "We aren't happy with the subject matter", etc. I told them I would try harder, study a different book of the Bible, whatever. It was already too late. They stopped coming. The STRONG ones, at least I thought they were. How could I do this without them? Things went downhill from there. I brought in an older, very respected woman to teach us. There was a resurgence for a while but when she got sick and couldn't come for a while it was the death knoll to the group.

I failed. I FAILED. There I said it. Right now is the first time in my life since the group folded that I have said it. That was almost thirty years ago. I failed. My biggest fear. Failing.

It wasn't until years later that one of the women admitted that she was jealous. She was jealous that I was just one of the ladies in the group and then suddenly I was the leader. I think that might be the devil's biggest tool, jealousy. There is a verse that says "Who can stand before jealousy?" How true. It didn't help me at the time though. All I knew is I had failed. It set me back. Waaaay back.

The only group that was still going was the Wednesday night group. Okay this is good. That was more couples though. That was okay, but I still just wanted a bud. A real friend. All my sorta friends were gone. Well, except for the two that liked to call to rant and rave. That was getting annoying. I mean, they NEVER had even ONE positive thing to say.....about anything. Okay, that's not entirely true. They were positive about me. They told me I was so awesome to 'be there' to talk to when they called. If I was so awesome how come I felt like such a sucker?

How did I get to this? Why is this happening? How do I get OUT of this?

Life in a small town can be wonderful, if you like everyone knowing your business, and talking about you over coffee.

This small town was changing. Building a few new neighborhoods where old corn fields and meadows used to be. Split level houses were the wave of the future, baby, and you were still young enough at 21 years old to run up and down all the stairs with no thought that someday your knees would hurt.

The twins were still in college, the buds from high school were still mostly in college too, although a couple had gotten married. Nobody had kids yet like I did, so there wasn't much to talk about when we were all together anyway. The single scene and dirty diapers don't really mix.

You had to love the new house. After all, everything was NEW! Orange counters were IN, man, so that is what was chosen before they put the new formica in. The house cost $29,900. Almost double the $16,000 the first house cost. That was the first time you ever saw him lose sleep. You never wanted to see that again. You tightened that belt, didn't ask for anything, got by with handmedowns for the kids. That look, that worry, don't like that, don't want to see that again.

The babies were awesome. You felt like you were born for this. You just loved playing with them, singing to them, reading to them. You didn't have a drivers license back then so you took them out for walks every single day. Even in the winter. You had this big, black buggy you got at a garage sale for $25.00. It was HUGE. All three babies, the four year old, the two year old and the six month old fit in it at the same time! Two of them had platinum blonde hair, one straight, one curly. The one in the middle had curly strawberry blonde. You thought your babies were the prettiest babies ever to be born in the world from any woman. People stopped you and told you how pretty they were, not just your mother, so it must be true!

The neighborhood being new like it was, had a lot of desperate housewives. They didn't know they were, but they were. It was the seventies, man, and women were reexamining their roles. Some of the mothers down in the cul-de-sac part of the neighborhood, the part that had the more expensive homes, started a Coffee Klatch.

You never found out until years later, when your curly, redheaded daughter spent a summer in Germany for her honeymoon, that Klatch is actually a German word for gossip. You always knew though that you just didn't like that word. It always smacked of old ladies, stale coffee and cigarettes and of course, gossip. Even without the knowledge of the word, you knew it wasn't pretty. Well, the cul-de-sac women invited you to come to their gossip. I mean, their Coffee Klatch. You don't know why they invited you cause you were up on the other end of the subdivision, but you felt vaguely honored and decided to try it out.

You were just hungry for some friends. Just someone to gab with. Not to talk about every one elses business with, just to gab. Talk about the kids, what to make for dinner, gee, even what you used to get the laundry that just came out of the dryer with red crayon on it clean. You would have settled for THAT.

Nowadays people like to platitudenize (unless you heard it somewhere else I think I just made up that word), that your spouse is supposed to be your 'best friend'. That didn't become the new psychology until after you had been married for twenty years. You didn't know you were supposed to hold out for THAT! You just thought being in 'luuuuuuv' was enough. Not to say that you don't have common interests with your spouse and have fun with them. But they are supposed to be EVERYTHING to you? You've actually been told that. Girlfriends are okay but be careful they don't take up too much of your precious time! Guy friends? No-no. Isn't your husband enough for you? You should be getting all your needs met through your husband, and any other friends, female or male should be strictly casual. Maybe that isn't what they meant, but it's what it sounded like.

The coffee klatch went as feared. Not being a coffee drinker anyway, and gagging in the cigarette smoke was bad enough. Knowing my pretty babies were going to come home and need a bath before naps was annoying too. The worst, though, was the gossip. What would they say about YOU when you weren't there? They were so pleasant to your face, but the way they talked about each other behind their backs was terrifying! Worse than anything from high school!

It came to you that you would be better off with no friends, than with these friends. You stopped going, but you didn't stop being lonely. You tried inviting couples over, etc...... and they came. It wasn't the same though as just having a girlfriend, a bud, someone who had kids, could talk kid talk.......okay, never mind. Just someone. Someone that wouldn't take in all your secrets and then gossip about you behind your back.

You struggled. You were happily married, that part was going good, but there was still this loneliness. You were eating disordered, and becoming Monkish, just like your Mom. You knew about Jesus. Your mother-in-law was the sweetest, soft-spokenest, Christian you had ever met. She didn't push Jesus at you but asked if you wanted to come to the Bible Study she led at her United Methodist church. She must have seen something in you that was searching because she never did that for her other daughter-in-laws. Sometimes you went, and you liked being with her, but the rest of the women were kind of bluehaired and wrinkled. You knew you shouldn't feel that way, but you did. She gave you a Bible for Christmas. You started reading it......... voraciously.

After you finally figured out how to get beyond the plexiglas ceiling that seemed to separate you from God, you felt much better. There still weren't any close buds but there was a hole that felt filled up.
Going to church, meeting all these new people you didn't even know lived in your small town and the surrounding towns, made you feel like you just opened a new window to the world. You got to be friends with the Bible Study leader. She had four kids and the oldest was ADHD. Her husband was the principal of the fledgling Christian school in the small town and her parents were well-known up at the Bible College since her Dad was a respected professor. We weren't exactly 'buds' but she kind of mentored me, the only mentoring I have ever had in all these years. She used to talk about how she wanted to move out of the small town and do big things for God. I don't know what she has done, but I do know that they moved a couple of years later. She sent a typed Christmas letter one year, but beyond that, who knows. Her parents are still in town. They talk to you sometimes when you see them in the grocery store.

So Bible Study was the key to having friends, right? You were so hungry for the Word anyway, and the thought of being able to sit around and discuss that with other women just made you crazy happy. So what if you were practically the only one to take the homework seriously, and to have way too much to say because most of the other women didn't even take the time to read the chapter. You got reprimanded once in a while for speaking up too much, but you were just SO excited! We were discussing the WORD. YAAAAY! We studied Proverbs, Marriage and the Family, and Romans. We found that scripture was relevant to our marriages, to our kids, to life. You loved it so much that you went to three a week. Tuesday and Thursday morning and Wednesday evening. You felt full. And satisfied.

You liked Romans so much, because that was the book that helped you find your way through the plexiglas, that you audited that class at the Bible College. When they asked you to host a Wednesday night Bible Study you said "Yes!", even though husband was still shy and becoming downright unsociable. He had accepted Christ too but the shyness persisted. Your friend, your mentor, saw some passion in you and tried to get you more involved in the church.

"You have a good voice, you should join the choir" "Okay!"

"We need someone to run the Pal/Gal program" "Uh, only if you help me!"

What she didn't bargain on, seeing you only in the confines of the home group, was that you lacked confidence. Not like her, the doer of all doers. She saw you at Bible Study, so effervescent and hungry for the Word. So competent in your role as wife and mother. She didn't know that you had no confidence in your ability to do much of anything outside the home. She knew you didn't have a driver's license but lacked the discernment to know why. The fear. It was all about the fear. The fear of failure. It's an ungodly fear. She kept pushing you though and you being so glad to have a friend, especially such a smart and respected one, forced you to drive through the fear. It was helping but then.............................they moved.

In the spring you get sick. Real sick. Like, you wake up one day and can't stand without fainting and every thing is going black, sick. You have a friend of the family who is a doctor. He lives on your street. He is the head of Cardiology but he is a family friend so he comes to check you out anyway. He recommends that you see this other doctor at the hospital. They do alot of tests. Take alot of blood. After the tests come back the doctor's talk only to your parents on the phone (none of those HIPA rules back then!) and whisper when you are around. White blood count way down. Could be mono but the count is so low. Leukemia?

Back then there was nothing you could do for either one of 'em. Just wait it out. Mono was okay. Two of my sisters had it once. You miss alot of school, they didn't use steriods to boost your immune system back then, but you don't die. Leukemia? Again, you wait it out, hope for the best, even though that kind of hope wasn't usually paid off back then. Not with leukemia.

They did some more tests. You fainted again in the elevator of the hospital. Everything just went black. You had never fainted before this and have never fainted since. Not a fainty kind of person.

The new tests were on your spleen. Mono. Yay, it's only mono. Only mono kept you out of school for over a month. It's real bad. For some people it isn't real bad, but your count was so low you just missed leukemia. It was bad. Can't walk up the stairs. Hardly to the bathroom. Can't eat. Lose thirty pounds. Well, there has to be SOME advantage to being that sick!

The brother of the twins, the boyfriend, the guy with the chocolate brown hair, the shy smile, and the incredible flying layup in basketball didn't forget about me. He came over every single night and watched Lew Alcinder and Wilt Chamberlain play basketball on our brand new color TV. You went in and out of sleep on the couch and he just sat there and watched the game, holding your hand the whole time.

Your parents were impressed. VERY impressed. Okay, so he isn't a Cornell graduate, like his parents, not even Dartmouth or Colgate, like your side of the family, but he is faithful. Faithful is good. Faithful is true. He loves her.

You go back to school. Bummer. When are you ever done with this place?! Your friends are there but everyone is thinking about moving on too. The weather is so nice. I have to take finals? Rats! Well, the twins are still there, and there are still parties. Now they are in the park, at the beach. Who cared that Lake Ontario is so polluted that you have to watch the weather report to find out if it is okay to swim that day. Hey, it's a beach.

There is only one picture of you from graduation day. The most noticable feature is the look of relief on your face. Yay. You're done. Let's move ON!

By August it is clear. This attraction, this infatuation, this all out love, is NOT going away. It's not about the Mustang, the prospective house, even the hand holding. It's about, you would live in a cave with this person. You would drive a clunker with this person. You don't care about college, a career, not anything, except being with this person. Nowadays they tell you to wait, hold off, get your education, live together first. Back then, if you were the 'good girl' like you were, you didn't live together. Wearing the white dress meant something different back then. When the attraction is that strong, you don't know HOW you wait, hold off, get your education first and still wear white on that day. White, and what that meant, was important to you. Who knows why, it just was.

"Dad", you said trembling so much your lip quivered, "can I just not go to college?" You didn't know how Dad would take that. You never know with those strong, silent types. Once in a while he would have a hearty laugh over something or give a whiskery kiss at the end of his business day, but still, you never knew. Not alot of 'I love yous' back in the day. He was silent for a moment and said, "Your mother and I have already discussed this. We have made the downpayment for college and it is non-refundable. We want you to go, at least for the semester we have paid for, and see how you like it and how you do. We will decide what action to take after that". You couldn't argue with the reasonablness of it. He was a pretty patient man, after all.

Not much time was spent with the twins that summer. They had jobs, you didn't, Moms and Pops didn't push it, and you spent your time reading mostly. Well, until the Mustang pulled up in the driveway at 5pm. You never really spent much time with the twins again. Kinda sad, that is. The next year they went to college, kind of got into some of the funny smelling stuff, and then got away from it. By the time they were done with school you had a baby, moved from your first house, which was old, to your new house, which was brand new, in your small, rural town, thirty minutes outside the city you grew up in, and had another baby on the way. Life got busy. Well, they did become your sister-in-laws, so you still see them every holiday, but they were just never your buds again. Almost like they were there just to get you connected and then they were out of the picture. Not really like that. But sort of. You never asked why, when or how on that one. It was pretty obvious. Times they were a changin'.

City High seems different somehow now. The building is the same, the kids are the same, albiet bigger, and you are one of the older ones now. A JUNIOR. Big stuff. Not ruling the school like the Seniors, but close enough.

You look different now then you did before you left. You're taller, much taller, and now you have an hourglass shape, where did that come from? Boys are interested. You are too. But you grew up in a family of all girls and a strong, silent type father. Boys are like a different species. Who are they? What do they think? Why do they act that way? What does THAT mean?

Your blonde hair, after years of being cut in the classic "pixie style" that Mom liked so much because she didn't have to bother with our hair or clean it out of the vacuum cleaner, is long and straight now, it's the late sixties, ya know. You wear a little lip gloss, maybe some mascara, but those were the days to be "natural". Only the girls that hung around with the frat boys, or the hoods, wore makeup. There were still a few throwbacks to the beehive days, but that was mostly out. Fashion was almost a free for all. Some girls wore tight pants, some wore bellbottoms. You were more the bellbottom type even though they were new on the scene and you definitely weren't a trendsetter by any means. You weren't a hippie, but you weren't a hood either. You were just you, trying to figure out who you were, what you thought about stuff, and what's life supposed to mean anyway?

Self-esteem is at a premium when you're in high school. Most kids don't have it and the ones that do generally are thought of as either popular or outcasts.

You have a natural way of walking down the hall. You don't think about it, it's just the way you walk. Your friends, the ones that used to be your buds, but now feel kind of distant and you only hang out with because you haven't had time to make new ones, tell you that you are stuck up now. Just since you've gone to that stupid, snooty boarding school. You can tell by how they treat you. But you question that because you want to give them the benefit of the doubt. "You think your so hot!", "You walk down the hall with your nose in the air, like you are better than us now". Okay, there it is. The truth comes out. You don't know what they are talking about, that your nose in the air stuff, because taking Kodak pictures on a daily basis was still kind of new. What they saw is that you have a tendency to keep your chin up. High. It was more noticable in pictures. That is, until you realized you do it and started to make a conscious effort not to do it.

The damage was done though. Judging people by outward appearance is harsh, man. You're skinny, think you're fat, just okay pretty, but think your ugly, normal smart, but inside you're an airhead and goofy. Funny how people only see the outside and have NO idea what is going on inside. And don't really care once they've made their judgements. Once they've decided who you are, even if you are totally different from that, their mind doesn't change. Not really. You've lived long enough to find out that even adults are like that. They act nice to your face, but they are unforgiving in their judgmental minds.

Finally you are a Senior. Whoopdeedoo. Who cares about ruling the school? Let's just be done with this thing and get on with it! College writes back, says you're in. Yipedeedooda about that too. More school. Even the living away from home part isn't that intriguing anymore. Been there, done that, gained the freshman twenty and lost it. A couple times. Well, at least it's different. You are going to school in a small rural town in Ohio in the fall but your roommate is from New Jersey. That's good, somebody that's not a hick anyway.

Christmas comes and goes. Ladeeda. Jesus. Who is He anyway? You remember crying once in Sunday School when they showed the crucifixion movie. Why did such a nice guy have to die that way? Poor thing. You remember saying a prayer once at a VBS you went to with your first best friend. She said it too, and you both memorized the verses for when you stood on stage during the final program, and you both worried about whether picking a flower off someone else's magnolia tree on the way home was a sin.

But that was a long time ago. There seemed to be a pricking on your heart about that. Not the magnolia thing, the Jesus and who is he thing? A friend gives you a book called "Good News For Modern Man". She says it's a Bible but it sure doesn't look like any Bible you ever saw. It was a paperback book. You read it, look at the stick figure pictures. Hmmmm. Okay, you say a little prayer. Something about how you know you are a sinner, you not only took that magnolia petal that day, you took a candy bar another day. And about those laxatives you took when you didn't want to ask your mother for money because she would ask what it was for and you didn't want to tell her it was so you could purge yourself every night, so you could stay thin, just the way she liked you to be. You know. Sin. No one had to spell it out. You knew what you were, you just didn't know how to get beyond the condemnation of it.

Well, there are these new girls. They aren't really new, they've lived on your street most the years you have. You knew who they were, just like they knew who you were, but you really never talked to them before. They're twins. Fraternal twins. One is tall and blonde, sort of like you, the other is shorter and had brown hair. They are nice girls. They have a funny way of walking right together down the hallway. It would probably be funnier if they looked just alike, but it's funny anyway. They are a year younger than you but were in one of your Spanish classes that got messed up when you switched schools.

They invite you to this New Years Eve party. They say they got a bunch of guys to come but they 'need more girls'. Okay, since you don't have anything better to do except stay home with the 'rents anyway. Who knows what your other friends are doing? Maybe they are staying home with their 'rents too or maybe they are doing something really fun and just didn't tell you. Whatever. This is good. Maybe.

You dress up. A little too much. Ooops, shoulda just worn the jeans. Oh well. There was some drinking at this party. Yuck. You always hated the smell of beer. There was a cute guy there though. Real cute. Chocolate brown hair, athletic. He's three years older than you but still pretty shy. Painfully shy your mother would say. He liked playing bumper pool though so you manuver your way into the lineup to play. You were okay at the game having played it alot at your 2nd best friends house all the time. After you beat him, you find out he isn't used to losing. He said, "Okay, let's try two out of three!" The people waiting were mad. They left the room the table was in. You don't remember who won the next game, or the next. Something about this shy guy with this competitive nature.....

You find out he's the brother of the twins. The brother! Okay, that is interesting. You go home that night, walking in the cold, and the wind, on January 1, 1971, and you are in a fog. The wind is blowing, hard, but you don't even feel it. You feel so warm that your blue pea coat with the big blue sailor buttons, is wide open.

The twins find out you like their brother. Notes fly at school. They set up more parties. He definitely seems interested but he sure keeps it to himself! He has a yellow Mustang. That was THE hot car back then, well, except for the Shelby that his brother owned. He asks if you want to go out to get the pizza with him for the party. Okay.

Wow, this is a NICE car! You gape and gawk and act dumb. He doesn't seem to care. You open his glove compartment, just being nosy. The door flaps down. His face reddens from the neck up and apologizes. He says he knew it was broken but didn't get around to fixing it. Not liking the uncomfortable feeling you just say, "No, I shouldn't have been fooling with your car". The next time he invites you to get in his car he says, "Open the glove compartment". You do. The door is fixed. He smiles. You feel warm. You know he did it because he cared about what you thought. What a rush.

He still took things kinda slow but the attraction pulled us in. Without making God first in your life, you tend to put yourself and other people first. Without God it becomes all about you. You and him. What else is there? Well, it's too bad Jesus had to die, and you feel bad about all that, but your Mom and Dad, the ones that took you to church all those years told you there wasn't any heaven or hell anyway. Just earth. The heaven and hell we make for ourselves on earth. Well, he was like heaven. If this is heaven, I'm going for it.

By June, you are stuck. He's not taking it slow anymore. He is driving up your driveway, daily, in his shiny yellow car, with the black scoop on the hood, and taking you out. Real dates. Not those note passing, hand holding, one dance one time, stupid dates. Real, in the car, alone, with a person you really like......you love......real dates. Dating wasn't the word anymore. The word steady was passe. You were 'going out'.

But what about college? All the way in Ohio? He was talking about getting married and telling you how you are NOT too young, and you are MATURE for your age, and he has a good job, been savin' money, has enough for a downpayment on a house. You agree. Didn't really want to go to school anymore anyway. Maybe not ever. At least not now.