Aurora's Blog

Yesterday, I talked about not necessarily loving Thanksgiving. However, there are some definite benefits to it.

(For one, as demonstrated last year, it’s an awesome excuse to go live running for a little while.)

But this year I realized it’s awesome because… you know how people are always talking about the annoyances of schlepping out somewhere and having to see all their super extended family that they barely know, and then invariably someone gets in a political fight and Thanksgiving is tense and blah blah blah?

Well, in the complaining of that, I never thought about the fact that you don’t necessarily have to see 80 million people. Sometimes your makeshift family is around. And that’s what happened this year.

I got to see my mentor (and I’d like to say one of my best friends). On this blog we call her B. Plus I got to see her lovely, wonderful daughter whom we’ll call M.

Now, these women, to me, are the epitome of what women can be. I’ve actually talked about how amazing B is before. So, I guess I don’t need to re-tread that too much. But I really do just adore her.

Her amazing tendency to give this completely unconditional support – to help play devil’s advocate when she’s helping you talk out your life, but ultimately stand by whatever decisions you make, and be there with you no matter what happens with them – it’s incredible.

I have made many, many decisions I’ve talked out with her – jobs to take or leave, places to move, and on and on. Sometimes I probably (okay, almost certainly) made the wrong decisions (and she knows they’re the wrong ones). But she’s never once said “told you so.” She’s only ever said, “I’m here for you.” And “what can we do now.”

Basically, she is this really incredible, shining example of what a true friend is.

And then M, oh goodness. Her kindness level is also off the charts. And she’s as close to perfect as a human can get.

She’s a stunningly gorgeous ballerina. She’s ivy-league educated in science. She’s a marathoner. She’s incredibly interesting and can hold a conversation about anything with you. She’s so strong, totally fearless, and awesomely self-reliant. As I said, to me, she is the epitome of a woman.

These women are totally role models of mine. I fall short of their level of awesomeness pretty much daily. But by golly, I will work to be in their league of fabulousness one day.

So anyway, I usually sleep during the day and stay up all night. But for whatever reason, today, I was actually up at 10:30 in the morning. I am never up at 10:30am – not unless there is some crazy super important (or fun) thing that is absolutely morning dependent – which happens basically never.

But today, I couldn’t fall asleep. I called my dad a while before 10:30 to wonder out loud “why in the heck am I still up?” He happened to be cleaning his room – which actually has all my race t-shirts in it. So, we spent some time over the phone kind of archiving them and making sure we had them all (since I really want a quilt of them).

Thank goodness that we talked and I stayed up, because as that phone call was ending, I got a call from B! She was calling to tell me she was in town and was coming with M to downtown and wanted to know if I wanted to get lunch!

I cannot think of another question in the world in which the answer is so obviously yes. I called my dad back to say how amazing it was that I was still awake. He’s never been happier that he wasted 45 minutes of his life archiving shirts, since he saw that being awake in the day really mattered for me (for once).

Lunch was so very lovely. There is nothing like being around these incredible women. I feel like it’s possible that I get just a tad better in general purely by being in their presence.

Plus, what feels better than just generally feeling so supported and loved and taken care of? Not only do I think I become slightly better just by being around them – but I feel better about myself. They build me up, and make me feel special & wonderful. I just want to live in the way they make me feel.

I couldn’t be more thankful for them.