Some Friends Just Fall in Your Lap

Most of the time our closest friends are the ones who have been with us for a very long time, through thick and through thin. They know us inside and out. They know our strengths and our weaknesses. They know what we love and they know what we hate. They know if we’re in a good mood or a bad mood. Best friends forever – BFFs, to use a coined phrase.

But sometimes we come across a true gem of a friend, not someone we have known for years, but someone we’ve just met, someone who has entered our lives and we know from the first meeting that we will probably end up as good friends.

My new friend Tammy is just such a friend.

The first time I had any contact with Tammy, was a phone conversation, and although I’m not much of a phone talker, I soon learned the two of us had many things in common. She was a writer and so was I. She loved country life and so did I. She was an old hippie from way back and so was I. Tammy had recently started writing articles for the Mercer’s Magazine and I really enjoyed her stories. I had been following her writing, mainly because her style is a lot like mine.

She originally called me to talk about blogs, and because blogs were my newest obsession, I was happy to tell her everything I knew. Not that I’m a blog expert by any means, but I had been blogging for just over a year and I found myself making more and more posts, so I loved to spread the joy of blogging. We had a wonderful conversation and I told her all about the writing class I was taking from Tony Sexton.

A couple of months went by, and although I was reading Tammy’s columns, we had not actually met. But during a January meeting of The Community of Mercer County Writers, lo and behold, there was Tammy. Meeting her in person only reinforced my initial thoughts about her – I think we were separated at birth.

Since that first meeting, Tammy has joined me in the Speaking Out II workshop and in Tony’s Advanced Writers Workshop. We have both done public readings at the Penn Store Writer’s Celebration – even when we thought we’d puke our brains out. We both continue to write, mainly personal narratives about events in our lives, and I’m proud to say, Tammy now gets paid for some of her writing. She has a bi-monthly column entitled “Hillbilly Zen” in a local paper. Okay, so I’m a little jealous, but I am so proud of her.

When talking about our lives, we may not have the same type of background, but we have similar situations, and I continue to tell her I think we were separated at birth. I enjoy reading her writing and she enjoys reading mine.

So, if you ever roll through Rose Hill on a hot summer night and see two middle aged women, naked on top of the water tower, just drive on by. Hot, hormonal women of a certain age are not to be trifled with.