The Great Thing About cancer Blogs

Since my post "The Scary Things About cancer Blogs" was, well, somewhat scary I thought I'd share the good stuff.

I've been fortunate to have many friends. But like the days on the calendar, friends can come and go depending on where you are in life. Never in a million years did I think I would EVER live on the East Coast. (I've said this before and I'll say it again, after 16 years on the EC I still feel out of place and get more stares than I ever did in L.A.). Distance across the terrain equals distance across friendships that were formed face-to-face, not tweet-to-tweet. And while Skype, video sharing websites, IM and other Interweb stuff is great to stay in touch, there's a lot more to friendship than just touching a keypad.

This was never more true when one of my oldest friends, Tim, found me on the wire. Tim and I met in the First Grade at Holy Trinity Elementary School. To this day, Tim is the smartest person I know. How? When he was a Junior in High School, he didn't attend school enough to "qualify" to pass the 11th Grade. (Tim, if you're reading I won't tell anyone why in case your Mom reads this). But he did have all A's. Yep. Aced just about every test, knew the material inside and out and could outsmart just about every Brother at our school. (By Brother, I mean the Franciscans). They thought they had him, just like they thought they had me the year before when I informed the school I was transferring. (That's another post).

I hadn't talked to Tim in at least 16 years. And when we did, it was as if we had never stopped. We have been through a lot together. Helped raise each other, actually. We lived a couple blocks from each other for many years and did something together every day. And when our friends changed, as they often do when we get older, Tim and I still stayed close. It went from Greg, Tim, Danny and Robert to Greg, Tim, Ben and Ray until I left for DC those 16 years ago. So hearing a familiar voice from someone who has watched my hair go from Red to Grey, knows way too much info on my past and still is around to talk about the old and the new days ahead was a great feeling.

Who says the Internet is impersonal?