When pearls are better than diamonds
She is as much like me, as she is different. We are not related, we don’t have to be. We are connected.
That Sunday, I’d sprinted up the beautiful staircase (which I daily ponder at how it could be mine) to check the phone, where it routinely sits plopped upon the greyed wooden table beside my bed.
I had tucked it earlier there, in a spot next to a small clear glass rectangular vase with flowers of every sort neatly arranged and smelling so deliciously, I had lingered above them for a time and took in the blessing of having flowers at my bedside.
I had walked longer than usual that morning, and spent the time thinking quite deeply about where I was headed and where I had been, and how the two vastly different realities had me learning and doing things I’d only wondered about. Now here I was, living out intentions, taking risks and planning more.
A few times as I trundled along the coulee path, a gentle warm wind dancing on my skin, my lips unconsciously turned to a soft grin, as I thought to myself ‘How exactly did I get here?’, looking out across the horizon and then up at the sky clouded with smoke and giggling softly out loud as the question flitted across my thoughts. I suppose at the very least it’s been a bit of a humorous adventure of sorts, a path that not all would relish taking. It is mine though.
Now nearly noon, I reached for the phone, swiftly clicking the bottom button to find a number of notifications – a couple routine, one I was genuinely surprised to get, and multiple messages and a missed call that I was excited to receive, as it was her.
We met through a combination of chance and intention. She was looking for something and so was I. She wanted an internship and I wanted an intern. That’s what brought us together. Something greater connected us forever.
She has a freeness about her that I’ve never had, or more truthfully, I have trouble remembering it in me, but I do know it was there, as it has begun to show itself to me of late. She is joyful, honest and deeply loyal. She is also adventurous, bold, outgoing and relentless in her energy to do and be more and enough at the same time. She is easily, both, enough and more, in the best of ways.
She told me once, that as soon as she saw me and my pearl ring, she knew she’d like me. I knew too, that first minute I was introduced to her, that we were meant to know each other and that I knew her somehow.
She has a beautiful soul that judges nothing, and an innate ability to see a person, and know them for who they are.
I’ve found that my truest of friends all share that common thread of loyalty, honesty, consistency, deep thought and warmth, likely none as organically as she, though.
I lifted the phone to my ear, calling her as I stood in the middle of my bedroom, happily waiting to hear her voice, she answered and said ‘It’s so good to hear your voice’.
She always shows up in my life at the best moment. Well, she is really always there, in her spot in my heart, whether we see each other often or not, I feel her with me.
Of all the learning and growth my life path has nudged (and sometimes forced) me to see and do, the most important lesson has been one of friendship.
Everyone and everything I’ve needed has dropped properly in front of me, at just the time I’ve required it. Her friendship and love of me, has been that.
A quiet presence I never guess about. She has told me things I’d rather not hear, asked me questions I didn’t want to answer and sat laughing with me about many other things.
She says I am different, changed for the better. And so I must be. I trust her, she sees me for what I am and what I will be.
The friends I have made and brought with me over the years have been a true gift that I often didn’t see or embrace as I do now. But now I know, and I am changed, and so when I think about the future, I am glad that I traded a diamond for a string of pearls.