It's G-Money's Birthday!

Katie and me, 2008

It's Katie's birthday! As I've said before, I call her G-Money. (As I've also said before, I have no idea why I call her that.)

Anyway, G-Money and I both have January birthdays, and every year we struggle as to what the year's gift-exchanging policy should be. This year we agreed on no gifts.

So this year, I'm giving her a blog post instead. It's sort of like the traditional gift materials associated with wedding anniversaries: one year is the paper anniversary, twenty-five years is the silver anniversary, etc. Your 28th birthday is the Blog Post Birthday.

For Katie's birthday post, I thought I'd write a post in the style of her blog, where she begins each post with a quote from a book. (My actual post begins below the line.)

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"And we might argue that we are not fated to do anything, that we have chosen everything in our lives, that there is no such thing as destiny. And we would be lying."

-- from The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown


I'm gonna admit it: I believe in fate. When I was a teenager I believed that every little thing that happened to you was part of some supreme plan, and that personal choice was an illusion because whatever was fated to happen would happen.

In my adult life, I no longer believe that every detail of life is already pre-ordained. I think you have some control over your fate.

But I do believe that fate brings certain people into your life. And I believe that fate brought a lot of you into my life for various reasons. But since it's Katie's birthday I'm going to talk about her.

Fate brought Katie and me together by making us cubicle neighbors in 2005. We both started work at the same company during the same week. Since the company had a lot of employees back then, we could not sit in the same area as our co-workers in our department. We were instead assigned cubicles that were, approximately, a million miles from everybody else. Seriously, like half the people who arrived at my desk would greet me with, "Wow, you really sit far away." Some were legitimately huffing and puffing. Most would call first to make sure I was there before they embarked on the trek. A few of the dumber ones didn't actually know where we sat.

So, we were sitting in this little isolated area, and we bonded over Rainbow Cones at the Taste of Chicago, and salads at Salad Spinners, and, alcohol at, you know, places that served alcohol. Also sometimes we liked to get drunk and wear funny hats.

Then Katie left work to go to graduate school and I left to have a kid, but I always knew we would remain friends. Generally speaking, I don't hold high hopes for lasting relationships with former co-workers. It's like usually what bonded you together was work-related, and when you take that common bond out of the situation (not to mention the convenience of always being together), it's hard to stay in touch.

But what bonded us together wasn't work-related. And that's why I think we were fated to be friends. I hope this is not a big, fat insult to Katie, but we are a lot alike. I think I was fated to have a friend like Katie who gets me. And I think she gets me because, in some ways, she is me.

Katie and I are both world-class worriers. Like, seriously, when I was a kid, teachers would tell my parents, "Well, she's a good student, but she just worries so much."

Katie is the first person I have ever found who can give me a run for my money, worrying-wise.

What I also think makes us friends is that we aren't too alike. Like, I am a boring housewife and mom, whereas she is a city girl with a kick-ass apartment. But I think we can be friends because even if we aren't living the exact same lives, we have commonalities on a deeper level.

(And yes, I have plenty of mom friends, and they are equally as special, but as I said, it's not any of their birthdays.)

So, G-Money is a great friend. She is also the most disciplined, hardest-working person I know. She pushes herself to do new things and go new places. She is dependable and never flaky. She is very supportive. She came to watch me in a 5K, and she came to my show.

She is active in the community, like she has a volunteer gig preparing food for sharks at the Shedd Aquarium. Yes, she is a Shark Wrangler.

She also has a really cute cat:

You guys, that is a cat in a mug

I could go on and on, but in an attempt to make this post of vaguely universal interest, I will say that everybody should have a friend who really gets them.

So I am glad I have Katie as a friend. Now go over and say Happy Birthday to her yourself!