glad to have a friend like you

[soundtrack. i am deeply sorry in advance for the visual here. it was the best the internets could do for me. go get the original free to be... you and me for the good stuff.]

i've been thinking a lot about compatibility. it's a very fungible concept, as you can be compatible with someone emotionally, but not practically (see also my ex - great guy, but being funny and sweet isn't enough to form a life). there's the kind of compatibility that makes you friends, the kind that makes you lovers, and the kind that makes you a "soul mate," inasmuch as i believe in that concept. it's hard to describe what makes you compatible with someone, but just like justice stewart said about obscenity in jacobellis v. ohio, you know it when you see it. (yeah, i know i just quoted a supreme court case in a blog post. i'm a lawyer. what do you want from me?)

being a blogger has added a whole new dimension to this idea, too. i started writing here in january 2010, really on a whim. i don't exactly know which layer of the cocktail of emotions that was swirling through my system drove me to reach out to the internet to find an audience. but i did it, and my lord, i couldn't be more glad that i did. turns out that there are tons of people all over the country who are kindred spirits in one way or another. there have been reconnections to old friends. i've made new friends based on political agreements or similar tastes in music. i've found people whose life stories have closely (if not damn near identically) tracked mine. i've met and commiserated with the divorcing and divorced.

in other words, it's made me feel less alone in this journey to know that there are others out there. this is the good side of blogging/social media and all this connectedness we have in the twenty-first century. and when you're young-ish, contemplating a drastic life change and sure that you're the only person suffering like this, the real-life world can be a lonely damn place. but lo and behold, y'all are out there to be supportive, warm and friendly, in ways that in many cases people in my flesh-and-blood life could not or would not be.

and now that i've turned the corner into the new life, you've been there to root for me and the man. i love that more than i can say. as the back-to-school chapter ends, and i go back to my adult life already in progress, i'm thrilled to see what happens. and a large part of that happiness and confidence going forward happened because i've had some great support from some people who really, truly get it. i am not alone. i never was. i've had kindred spirits out there to rely on for advice and laughs, and all it took is finding some compatible people.

i'm a lucky woman to have friends like y'all. :)