Celebrating Her Again

Today is Carmen’s birthday.

I wanted to stop by her office this morning and wish her a Happy Birthday in-person, but not surprisingly, she decided not to come to work today. I do not blame her one bit. I never work on my birthday either and haven’t for years.

We’re planning to have lunch together next month. I’m not going to hold my breath though. We’ve been planning to do lunch for almost two years now. Things always seem to come up unexpectedly. Sometimes our schedules don’t line up like we had planned. It’s always something. The last time we happened to do lunch was this past May, though she and I ate lunch with two of our other friends. So, in theory, we ate lunch together, but it wasn’t just the two of us. I suppose that counts, in some capacity or another, but it’s obviously not the same had it just been the two of us alone.

Being that we don’t see each other that often, all we pretty much have is text messaging. I’m glad that she is responsive to the text messages that I send her because in the past, I’ve had so-called best friends who couldn’t be bothered to maintain even the simplest of conversations with me by text. I am glad and grateful for the strong and close relationship that Carmen and I have maintained for all these years. Of course I miss her, being that we’re in different offices now, but I’m still happy that she is a part of my life after all these years. She’s definitely been a shoulder to cry on and just someone with whom I can always converse, and seemingly about anything and everything.

Indeed, we’ve had those kinds of conversations too.

This might sound corny, but I don’t know how I would have done this job when I first started, had she not been the strong presence that she turned out to be. We were there for each other and we had created such a strong bond. I miss the way that we used to work together, but I know that in some way, she’s still there for me, just as I am there for her.

That’s a lifelong bond there that we’ve created, the kind that has and will continue to stand the test of time.