The very definition of friendship..

Friendship means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but let me tell you what it means to me.

I have a close-nit group of friends. Majority of them are bloggers, a few are not (they're our sounding boards ;) ). We haven't known eachother all of our lives, and actually, with the exception of two of us, we're all from a different state across the U.S.! I love all of these women, very much, there is very little that I wouldn't do for them. One of them, is my very best friend. Her name is JC, she's an angel, and I want to share a little bit about how we met and grew to have best friend status. She is the definition of friendship in my eyes.

JC- one of my heroes

A little less then a year ago, I was fairly inexperienced in the facebook world. I had my personal page, and some friends (mostly my husbands friends, to be fair.) and I followed some entertaining mommy pages. One of those pages I was a "regular commenter" and after awhile, the woman who owned that page invited me to be part of a fb group of women who just kinda hung out and chatted (via the computer.). I was thrilled! I accepted immediately, and in that group was JC. She extended her hand in friendship and I latched on. JC and I talked in the group, we chatted outside of the group, we exchanged phone numbers and texted each other on a very regular biases. The fb group fell apart. (Well, really, it exploded, but that's a whole different story!) JC and I's friendship stayed strong, telling eachother about our lives, and our families. Then something happened that changed the meaning of friendship to me. Bear with me, this is about to get as real as it gets. Here's honesty at it's finest.

I struggled desperately with depression. A hard-core, deep black hole with no light switch and no ladder, depression. One night, I don't actually remember specific details, I made a suicide attempt. Not a "cry for attention" attempt- a real, honest-to-goodness, ending it all, attempt. I don't remember my reasoning for it now, but the straw the broke the camels back doesn't matter in this case. I took medication. A lot of it. More then a lot of it- a drastic, no turning back amount. And then, while I hadn't changed my mind, I was sad to be leaving JC. So I told her what I had done. Kind of. I told her cryptically. I wanted to say goodbye. I don't know if that was incredibly selfish on my part or not, but I needed her to know how much I appreicated her. Her response was instantaneous and her reaction was just as swift. She called my mom. (Now remember, JC lives in a different state then I do.) She told my mom what was happening and to call 911. I have no idea why she had my moms phone number at the time, but she did, and she called her.

She saved my life.

Unfortunately, this was only the beginning. My head and my heart were surrounded by such blackness that light couldn't penetrate, that I couldn't bare continuing on. I made another 4 attempts to end my life in the following six months. Hospitalization followed each one. Things happened in those hospitalizations that I wont type out, because, well, because they aren't things that I like to remember. Just know that they were painful and debilitating. Traumatic and tragic.

I had my parents, my husband and my  children. They were my constants, my "always gonna be there's". But in the back of my mind, a voice kept saying "They're only here because they're obligated to be here. You're a burden and nothing will change that.", but y'know what shut that voice up? JC. She virtually held my hand through every hospitalization and she didn't let go. She didn't make excuses and fade out of my life, and she didn't judge, condemn, or criticize. She loved me for what she saw past everything else. Past the darkness, past the anger and the sadness, past the self pity, and the past the desperation of what I was living in. She saw a light, waaaaay back there. She saw potential, she saw talent, she saw a funny and witty woman, she saw the love I had for my children, for my husband, for my parents. She saw me. I didn't know that there *was* a me anymore. She believed in me when it would have been so much easier to walk away. I can never repay her for that.

This amazing woman is always on my side. No matter what. I could be so unbelievably wrong to the point that it's laughable, but JC always has my back. She's encouraging, she's my back-up, she's my cheerleader, she's my shoulder to cry on, she's my laugh-track, and most importantly, she's never ever not been there when I needed her. She is the one who taught me what friendship is; what it truly means.

The women in this club of mine, I'm practicing on them. I'm taking all the friendship truths that JC taught me, and I'm living them in this group. These girls that I have, while I don't think they think that these friendships are fleeting, I'm not so sure that they know that it's a forever thing. But thanks to JC and the lessons on what a real friend truly is, I'm never walking away from them.

Love you ladies!

 What a huge blessing, and a true honor to have learned from such a walking inspiration. (If any of you happen to know Ellen...JC and I have NEVER met in person! Hook us up with a first face-to-face meeting so we can dance with Ellen! ;)  )

Very, very simply, thank you JC- for your friendship.