Starring Jessie!

Ok, I've been meaning to tell this tale for a month and LIFE just kept happening and preventing it. So, a month late, here's a short sweet story about a dear friend. Jay broke his arm about a month ago. His cast is already off by now of course, but a few days after he broke his arm, we got a surprise in the mail. My sweet friend Jessie who lives alllll the way over in Nebraska sent Jay a little Lego Star Wars set and a card saying feel better soon. And for good measure, she also included a box of markers for Rose, because, in her words "who likes to be left out?" WHAT A DEAR! She also wrote me the kindest, most flattering note practically of all time. I kept reading it and saying to myself, "is she really writing this to me??" One more time: WHAT A DEAR!

 

Do you feel it coming? Here it is: the backstory.
In this digital/social media age, I have a few friends whom I have only met in person a few times, and even one or two that I have never actually met in person! Example of a friend I've never met: one of the Resident Assistants who was in the dorm Jeff and I were Resident Directors for at SVU got married after we graduated. I became friends with his wife via the internet, never having met her in person. No! Do people actually do that in real life? Well, it happened to me! Our friendships grew over the internet, of all places, through emails, comments, Facebook, and blogs. On the outside, it seems so unlikely, so...fake of a way to become friends. But we are friends! Really! I used to feel guilty somehow for having "virtual" friends like this because, is it allowed? Is friendship real when you've only ever met in person once? Or never? I've decided that it is real! And I love it!

Anyways, I met Jessie way back in 2008 when I went to visit my college roomie Laurs (Lauren DeNys) at her family's house near Omaha, Nebraska. Laurs had just returned from her mission and I was pregnant with Jay. We lived in Missouri at the time and it was a 6 hour drive to the DeNys family house. Now that I'm writing this, I'm not 100% sure that's the first time I met Jessie...I think it was though. Anyways, Jessie was in high school and we met kind of briefly in passing. But over the next few years, I visited the DeNyses a few more times and saw Jessie all of those times too. She was nice and cute and fun and clever and a reader. So it was good. But I was never in Nebraska for more than a few days at a time, so we never would've become real friends without Senor Internet.

Fast forward a few years: Jessie got married and graduated college and had babies and how did I know all of this? She started writing about it on a blog! So I got to know her little by little. And it was the best! She got to know me through my blog too, and one day I realized that we were friends. We even talked on the phone once because we both read a really lame book that we had to vent about. Isn't this an amazing time, when we can not only keep up with old friends via the internet, but also develop new friendships? I sure like it, although I don't have a picture of Jessie and me to add here, so you'll just have to use your imagination. She has brown hair, if that helps. :)

I'm not saying that I prefer "virtual friendships" to in-person friendships, but when you live too far away for the in-person kind, the virtual thing totally works. I'm glad to have friends "in the flesh" nearby, but I'm equally glad to have friends "in the cloud" too!

Some people are just kindred spirits.