YEG

I have known my friend R for thirteen or fourteen years. We got to know each other via blogging, when that was a thing... when I first signed up to use a news aggregator (bloglines), her blog came up as a recommended site, so, I subscribed. In time, we became pretty good friends. We talked a couple of times on the phone, when calling internationally was expensive and online phone calls hadn't gotten to be as good as they are today. There seemed to be a pretty serious connection despite the major difference in our ages and the distance (I was in Michigan, she in Saskatoon), and at the time, I honestly thought something deeper might develop between us.

At some point, things basically went dark on her end, and I went weeks without hearing from her. The next thing I knew, she was seeing someone and planning on getting married. Which she did. A year or so later, she had a baby girl. She seemed happy. She was for a while, I guess, but it all came crashing down in the last few years. We had remained in regular contact over the years, so, I was there to listen as it all unfolded.

I had moved to San Francisco while much of this was going on, and was living with someone when she finally ended her marriage. For the last few years, she's been in and out of brief romances, and most recently parted with a live-in boyfriend.

In January, my girlfriend and I split up, so, I thought it would be a good time to make something happen. I decided that R and I were finally going to meet... that I no longer wanted to wait for her to come to San Francisco for a conference (if ever she found one), so I asked when her schedule was best for a visitor, and then made my travel arrangements.

Tomorrow, we meet.