Season of Love

Last year I traveled to San Francisco with some of my favorite people to celebrate a friend's completion of the SF marathon (and to ogle the firemen giving away jewelry at the finish line).

Last weekend I attended the long-anticipated college graduation of one of my closest friends; the super fun celebration included a Ford Mustang Convertible (yes, we rode with the top down and the heat up), several late nights, a dinner party for 11, lots of laughing, and a full-on Santa costume. (Long story.)

Last night I listened to another good friend share her struggles to understand and accept a medical diagnosis.

Today I cried with a new friend here in Nashville who's facing Christmas while grieving the recent death of her best friend in a car wreck.

In the 1996 musical "Rent," the company sings,

How do you measure a year? 

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee. 

In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife. 

In 525,600 minutes - how do you measure a year in the life? 

How about love? Measure in love.

Every bone in my cynical body wants to avoid sounding all after-school-specialish, but the older I get the more I value the friends who have become a second family. This year we navigated a couple of moves, a few graduations, an engagement, some kids starting kindergarten, some new babies on the way. We shared a year of midnights and misunderstandings and also some moments of laughing so hard those cups of coffee almost spewed back out our noses.

Ugh--I'm getting sentimental in my old age. But this Christmas I'm so grateful for all 525,600 minutes.