True Friend.

Last week my grief for my mother hit me at 9:30 on Wednesday night. I felt that now-familiar need to talk to her.

So I sat down and typed a letter to her as though she didn't know the news of the last year or so. I spent probably an hour on the computer, and wrote about two single-space pages. I told her the truth about men. I told her all the complicated details that I would have left out in real life, for fear of her judgment. I explained where I was now, how I think, and where I'm headed.

At the end of it, I realized that all that truth actually needed to be out there in the world for someone alive to know. I needed to learn how to have the guts to share it with an actual friend.

So I changed the heading, and sent it to my college roommate. We aren't particularly close. We were excellent roommates, but not each other's closest friend in college. But she saw me through a lot of man-trouble, so when I got married I asked her to be my maid of honor. Now we see each other maybe every other year. I know we love each other, but still I worried about her reaction.

A day later she emailed me one sentence:

'I am so proud of you.'