Sometimes I have words, sometimes I don’t. But I know that by writing it, I’m much more likely to get it right than if I try to say it with my mouth.

I usually have an idea of what I want to talk about before I sit down to write. Sometimes I have to look at writing prompts to kick-start my motor. Since I’m not getting out a whole lot, I’m limited on subjects. Y’all can only read so much about my dog. One of my favorite columnists could benefit from this notion. I sometimes think if I have to read one more article about baseball or his dead daddy (who’s been gone way longer than he was ever here) I’m gonna send him a list of other stuff to write about. Just when I can’t take any more, he’ll pop off one about pound cake or some old lady eating alone at Cracker Barrel or something, and I’m good for another month or so.

Anyway….yesterday I wrote about the herbicide thing. Well, really it was about women needing to pull themselves up by their flip-flop straps and believe in themselves what needs to be done, can be done. BY THEM. Sure, it’s nice to have a man around for the gunky parts of life, like plumbing, or the parts you just don’t want to do (like plumbing). Or the parts you’re scared to do, like scaling the roof to clean out gutters or hammer back down the wayward nail. My take home message is this: marry a plumber, or make sure your sister does.

I’m kidding.

Kind of.

You need an electrician, too.

All joking aside, my little story wasn’t that fascinating in my mind. I was just recollecting and asking for forgiveness of sorts. We all need to be reminded of what we’re capable of every now and then. It’s easy to forget you’re great at planning fundraisers for your city’s 200 most elite power couples when you’ve been anchored at home for five years raising your littles. A thankless job, most days, as I’m given to understand. So I wrote my little blurb about how empowering it was to kill stuff and how I hoped that every woman I’d ever helped felt at least a little bit more accomplished after she’d completed this one act deemed “man’s work”. Well, it wasn’t the most popular piece I’d ever written, and I didn’t expect it to be. I’m not after that, anyway. Most of the time I just sit here and bleed and hope somebody will maybe bring me a cupcake or something. But since I posted my memory yesterday, I’ve had a couple of disclosures from people I don’t hear from regularly, enforcing my opinion of how much we need to stay strong. To remember what we’re capable of. And one of them needs your prayers. Desperately. Please pray for comfort and strength as she prepares to learn just how resilient she is. She knows, she’s just kinda covered up with worry right now and can’t see past that.

I’m fortunate in that I’ve never questioned my worth. I’ve never had to ask myself if I was good enough for a certain person, a specific job, or to gain respect. I just did. It’s never crossed my mind to ask if I belonged somewhere. If I’m there, I belong. I try to dress the part to throw people who might second guess my worthiness. Fake it till you make it, and all that.

So. Coming up on two years ago, I had a life-altering incident. It was traumatic, to put it bluntly. Everything I thought I knew about someone I loved and trusted was a lie. It made me reevaluate everything in my life. I felt like I couldn’t get my breath, even just sitting still. I hate to include the overused expressions “I was blindsided” and “pulled the rug from under my feet” but that’s exactly what it was. I couldn’t have been more surprised. It was like some disgusting joke that would never be funny. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t smile, I couldn’t listen to the radio, watch movies, or read books. I was a straight-up honest-to-goodness MESS.

But my makeup stayed in place.

And I’ll tell you what else stuck.

My friends.

Ladies, you need your friends. I know they drive you crazy with their drama. I know they’re not always available when you’re dying for a margarita on a particularly taxing Monday. I know they don’t answer your texts fast enough. I know you hate the hairstyle/ husband/ couch they’ve chosen. I know, I know, I know. But you NEED them. You need them when life throws you right splat in the middle of the gutter. You need them at midnight when you can’t quit shaking. You need them to take you to church and hold your hand and let you cry. You need them, and they need you.

I had a fairly new friend when my world went all to hell. She barely knew me. I mean, I’m legendary in my own right so she knew that I was rumored to be awesome but obviously I didn’t have my best self showing at that moment in time. But you know what my new friend did? She came by my work, she gave me a hug, she dropped off some flowers, and I think she even brought me something to eat (although I can assure you I did not eat it). And a few weeks later, she called me and asked me to come by her house on my way home, she had me a “little something”.

What she had me was a handmade quilt. In addition to being a baker, a beekeeper, and probably a blacksmith, she is also a quilter. It’s lap size, and something about it is fundamentally me. And she hardly knew me. It had the sweetest card ever with it, describing the hours of work that had gone into it, her prayers and own tears, and maybe some bad words for a bad man, too. She said it was just for me. She said I needed to have something that he hadn’t touched. I remember this vividly because I thought about how true that was. To have something in my possession that didn’t have a single memory of him attached.

So I brought the quilt home, assured that it would prove to be as low maintenance as she confirmed that it would be. I slept with it that night on my bed. I felt reassured that someone who barely knew me obviously loved me.

In the afternoons, the quilt was on my lap or by my side on the couch and then I’d drag it to bed. You can call it my security blanket, I don’t care. Just because I’m forty doesn’t change a thing.

I went to Florida in September that year. I was packing the car. The man who had almost ruined my life showed up to “see me off”. Like I needed that. He was surprised that I had my car already loaded.

“You need anything else loaded? What else is going? This?” He picked up my quilt I had folded and laying near my purse. MY quilt. The one he had no business touching. I jerked it from his hands.

“I got it.”

And the quilt accompanied me to St. George Island.

I’ve sat on this quilt nearly all day, carrying it from shady spot to shady spot as the sun moves. And I’ve thought about my good friend all day while I’ve done it. Of course we’re still friends! How could I not be? For one, she’s closest in proximity, and two, have I mentioned her baked goods? I’m KIDDING. She’s a nut; we share the same sense of humor and ninety mile an hour chatter. Not everybody can hang.

You need friends. Even if they can’t quilt. Even if all they can do is give you some words on a page. I hope my words help you. Let me know if you can use some more.