Sprinting alone through Manhattan’s Upper East Side in the rain after wandering through the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a couple of hours, I realized I felt something rare – exhilaration. I wasn’t dressed for running, of course. Who is when they truly need to be? I knew my cute little walk-around flats would be ruined, my jeans were soaked, my hair was plastered to my head (not a good look for me), and the umbrella I’d bought from a street vendor had, of course, imploded upon opening, sending me into a fit of laughter, which, believe you me, cleared a wide space around me. New Yorkers, en masse, deal well with crazy, but I think the laughter at the immediately broken umbrella was beyond their scope of comprehension.
What those skeptical New Yorkers couldn’t know was that my soul was singing simply because I was in NYC, where dreams are made, where people flood for the mere wisp of a chance at their heart’s desire. It’s the penultimate city of infinite hope, a city that truly rises from the ashes and says, You won’t defeat us.
I was strong enough to run, to walk hours for at a time (That in itself was a true miracle!), to explore Central Park, to sit in awe in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, to openly grieve at the 9/11 Memorial. I was taking none of it for granted, not the amazing food from the pizza stands, to the hot dog vendors, to the “in” restaurants where the waiter’s manicure was better than mine. I saw “Cinderella” on the actual street “Broadway” in the Broadway Theatre with Sherri Shepherd as the step-mother. (If you see it on tour this year, don’t worry at the close of the first act. Cindy really did read the script.) But I have not told you the best part of this NYC adventure yet – I was with my Girls.
You have them, those beautiful women who have stood beside you through the proverbial (or actual) hell and high water. Those women you met as girls, whether you were 8 or 18, but they’re the ones that know you, all of you, even the darkest corners of your heart and love you anyway. They’re the amazingly brave hearts who stood by you even when you dove head first into the biggest mistakes of your life and simply said, “We’ll catch you if you fall.” They’re the ones that no matter how long between visits, when you see them, it feels like you washed out their coffee cups yesterday and left them on the drain board in anticipation of today. The conversations pick-up where they left off, and the years fade away.
So, this NYC experience was with two of my Girls, and I couldn’t have been happier. I probably don’t say this enough, but without these women, I wouldn’t be who I am today. I love them. They are simply part of my chosen family, and I know they feel the same about me. There is something infinitely akin to being given super-human power (thinking here of getting bit by a radioactive spider) in knowing you are loved that much by someone who doesn’t “have to,” but instead chooses to do so.
Hmmm…I can think of someone else who does that, too, every single day, and He allows, creates, even initiates those other amazing relationships. And to Him I say a humbled, “Thank you, and Amen.”
The Unexpected Life 