The 'benefits' of friends

So, last week, four people, out of the blue, PMed or emailed me and said, 'hi,' and 'how are you?'

I don't know what that means to you, but what it means to me is how brave each of these people, my friends, that I haven't heard from in a while, for some, more than a year, to just *boink* get up one day and say 'hi' and see how little `phfina is doing.

And now, it doesn't matter how I was doing before. How I'm doing now is wonderfully! Thank you, my friends, for being brave, for being kind, for being thoughtful, for ... caring. For caring about little me and how I'm doing.

And you, my dear friends reading this little note, having not written me.

It's okay. It hurts, but it's okay. I understand that it can be a scary thing to write to me, because I'm a scary person, and you never do know if I'm in a fit of desperation and depression so deep you won't know what hit you when I savage you back with my: "How am I doing? Who the fuck are you to ask me how I'm doing? I just fucking tried to kill myself because I fucking hate my life, and you ask me how I'm doing?"

Yeah. 'Bitch' isn't a word to describe me, because bitches fear me. That's a known fact.

And other times I'm so full of love and understanding and sweetness you say 'well, who needs heroine?' Really! And you just float in my love, and you offer to get me hitched to you so you can drag me away to your bedroom and have your wicked ways with me only stopping for pee breaks and supper so you can explain to your parents you have this new live-in pet you're keeping forever.

You never know what you're getting with me, and so I understand that it's hard sometimes, or all the time, to write to me, because you've read my stuff and who can talk to somebody who writes this stuff, and what do you say to her when you write? "Hi. How are you doing?"

That's sometimes hit or miss.

That's me, a hit or miss kind of girl.

But something that hits it out of the park for me is ... you.

"You. Can I hug you?"

When you reach out to me, with your heart? I read that. I feel that. In my bones.

And it gives this little girl one more reason to live one more day.

And maybe even 'update soon' that chapter. ;)

I love you.