She's Fantastic

I've recently reconnected with an old friend . . . a college buddy from whom I had drifted apart through my mid-to-late 20s. This friend was a huge part of my life in my first few years at Georgia. She was someone I looked up to, someone who seemed to have it all together, someone I really cared about. When I last spent time with her, she was a newlywed. She seemed happy as a clam, living in her great house and enjoying her new post-college, very adult life.

As the last 6 years have flown by, this friend . . . who I thought had it all together with her great life in the suburbs . . . experienced more than her fair share of ups and downs. Sure, I'd heard to rumors . . . that her marriage to her college sweetheart had ended because of his affair with a neighbor. That she was single again and dating . . . had become a flight attendant. But it was all 'hear say' -- stuff other people told me. I put little weight into it because I really wanted to hear all of this from her. I wanted to know how she was doing -- not how other people said she was doing. So, this weekend, on our first face-to-face get together in more than 6 years, I had to ask. I had to hear what had happened.

I got what I wanted . . . but it wasn't what I expected. I expected her to be sad . . . or maybe uncomfortable . . . talking about it. But she was, instead, very calm, matter-of-fact, and honest about the whole thing.

The college sweetheart that my friend had married seemed like such a great guy. She was (is!) a great girl. They bought a great house in a great suburb. Like I said, when I left her, her life was . . . great.

But then he cheated on her, only a year or so into their marriage. He cheated on her. And I don't mean some one-night-stand or a whimsical evening of too much drinking and very poor decision making. He had a year long affair with a woman who lived on their street. A woman my friend knew well and had actually introduced to her husband.


She didn't exactly catch the two in the act of infidelity, but she knew what was going on. Tosseled sheets on a mis-made guest bed were all she needed to find to know that something was not right in her house. She confronted him, he denied it . . . to the point of accusing her of being certifiably 'crazy' to have such thoughts. This went on for several months, during which my dear friend knew her husband was lying to her.

And then, after having enough of it, she left. She got up the courage and left him. Him, her house, her dog . . . she left it all. A few months later, they were divorced.

"And then, there I was . . ." she told me. "Kinda like, 'NOW what am I going to do?' "

That sentence . . . the way she said that . . . I just was in awe at what she had been through. That feeling of 'NOW What?' is the scariest, most terrifying feeling I could imagine. She had to pick herself up and start all over. After spending her entire college career with this man, after starting her adult life with him. There she was, mid-twenties, looking for a place to live, a job, a whole new life.

I don't know if I would be strong enough to make it through something so incredibly difficult. I don't know that I could face that. The way she must have felt . . . to find the mis-made bed and just know that something was wrong. I wanted to cry as we sat together on my couch and she told me her story. She didn't deserve that. It wasn't fair. I hate that she ever EVER had to experience that.

I am so proud of my friend for what she did and how she handled it all. She didn't curl up in a ball and let time pass her by . . . she didn't mourn for her old life and wish she could to back to 'the way things were'. She didn't go back to that man, the cheater . . . which is the most impressive of all. It would have been so easy to go back . . . so much more comfortable to go back to someone so familiar.

Nope, not her. She left, and she didn't even look back. Instead, she started a new life for herself. She moved around Atlanta, made new friends, started a new career in the airline industry. She enjoyed her life in a way that she had not before . . . as a single girl with nobody to worry about but herself.

I envy her strength. That she could do what she did when she did it . . . in your 20s, when life is so uncertain and unclear . . . without all the extra uncertainties she had to endure. She was a brave, brave girl.

The Happy Ending: my dear friend is now very, very happily remarried to someone who seems to truly adore her. After a few years on her own, enjoying her life and finding herself . . . she found a new person with whom she can share herself. She's pregnant with her first child and so excited to start that new chapter in her life in just a couple of months.

She made it through all of that mess with the first husband, and she came out on top. She came out stronger, happier, and smarter than I think she ever thought she would. She's fantastic.

She's reading this today . . . and I hope she knows that I am so, so glad to be a part of her life again. I'm really so glad to have her as a friend, and so proud of her for all she has done in the last few years.

To her: I had to blog about you -- I hope you don't mind! You know I have nothing but respect for you, my friend. I wanted you to know how our visit impacted me . . . and that you are an amazing person.