let's rewind, and feel free to fast forward

on our first Sunday at our new church building, a beautiful woman approached me, the bishop's wife, her two boys chasing each other out the back doors to their class, her little girl whining as she ran up and clung to her leg, looking up at us with big brown eyes.


"so I was told we need to be best friends."  she smiled.


we fell in love.


we still call that beautiful time in our lives Magical March, where we biked down the canal to Olive and Ivy and ate lunch as our motherly instincts kicked in and we joked with the server about the choices he was making.


then we both got pregnant, our lives got crazier (and pukier), and we were best buds.  we swapped recipes, and would bring each other dinner because we always had extras.  I would get her oldest son excited to read by racing him to finish each installment of Percy Jackson's adventures.  we talked a lot about my recovery, she bought my recovery book, and shared it with her friends that she had concerns about.  i took her to a wig shop for her birthday to prove that I could look good with short hair.  she stole the show with her rockin shoulder length blonde do, and proved me wrong.  we laughed a lot.  it was like one long beautiful moment.


and then she up and moved!  the nerve!  the injustice!  I had just had my baby and she was packing up her stuff at 8 months pregnant in the June heat and I called her crazy.  she was so excited about her new house, but not as much as her kids and her husband were.  Mesa was a new start for them.  but before their new start, she needed higher altitude and cooler air for her last month of pregnancy.  so before they settled in, they left their garage full of boxes to spend July in Flagstaff.


and then, two weeks before coming home to give birth to their fourth child, her husband died.


I remember finding out something happened, and she text me moments later that she didn't think he was going to make it.  we rushed out of church and sped to flagstaff just in time to see him, hold his hand, touch his forehead, and tell him to wake up.  she was so strong that day, holding his hand and kissing his face.


and then five seconds later I was helping her pick out a dress for his funeral at a maternity store and then driving to his funeral , and then five seconds after she was in Utah giving birth to her baby, and then five seconds after that we were moving in to her new house that she never moved into, helping with floods and bee infestations and taming a wilderness of an overgrown yard.


and we walked out our new front door and walked the orchard lined streets and realized we were WAY out of our league.


and now, five seconds later, our time at this beautiful home has expired.  it sold faster than anyone could have guessed, and so, almost literally, five seconds later we will be moving.  to who knows where.


and I'll miss my 6,000 square foot yoga studio that I walked to from my front door.  I'll miss my 5:30 AM yoga students and how much we laughed.  I'll miss the beav pointing out all the airplanes that fly right over our heads as they take off and land next door.  I'll miss being so close to the temple and going there once a week with hubs.  I'll miss the rope swing, and the pool parties, and the 8 car garage that we had dance parties in.  I'll miss rollerblading with the beav each morning around and around the neighborhood, and I'll miss the scent of the orange blossoms that I wish I could bottle up and take with me everywhere I go.  I'll miss ten degree cooler temperatures in our back yard, I'll miss our little luxury guest house, and I'll miss the twin girls across the street.  I'll miss all the smiling faces at church, and being referred to as the caregivers.  I'll miss having this connection with my friend.


but I won't miss the scorpions.  or the realtor.  or the five minute notice that our house has to be spotless.  or being thirty minutes from the people I'm not embarrassed to see me cry.


but especially the scorpions.