Your Vibe Attracts Your Tribe - Part 5

One my closest friends is Colleen.  I met Colleen in College.  I did not like her at first.  To me who came from a very conservative household, she dressed kind of slutty and wore too much make up.  She intimidated me.  I laugh now when I think of that.  We hit it off once I was able to let go of my pre conceived ideas of her and we had a lot of fun and adventures in college.  She was the naughty to my nice.  She smoked a lot, always had a party to go to, had no real life plan.  We chose her major one evening when as I flipped through the pages of the college catalogue she put her finger in.    It landed in Photo Journalism so that is what she majored in.  After college I moved to California and although we didn’t lose touch completely we did not see each other for many years.  I got married and had you boys and my life got very busy.  Colleen never married but she started her own business and had a very successful and rewarding life.  Every year she and six other women from our dormitory floor would meet for a reunion.  I could never make those reunions since they were in the midwest but I often called to talk to everyone on those evenings they were all together.  Every once in awhile I would get to one of the reunions and seeing Colleen again made me so very happy.  It was like we had never been apart.  She knows me like none of my friends know me.  I often tease her that I will always have to be her friend because she knows too much.  She is the best friend anyone could ever have.  She is kind and caring and a good listener.  She knows all of my faults but she still loves me and does not judge me or my decisions.  We can talk for hours.  Fortunately for both of us we have been able to get together more often over the past 10 years. 

I have had many friendships over the years and I often wonder what it is about this friendship that has made it so different?  Why do we have this connection that I have with only a few people.   Did Colleen and I know each other in another life?  Do we have some biological attraction similar to pheromones? Did we just meet at the right time in the right place and the planets were all aligned?  What I do know is that I value her friendship as much as I value my relationship with my family and I think she feels the same about me.  

Colleen is one of a group of friends that all met at Northern Illinois University in 1975. We were all put on a study floor for a variety of reasons and there were eight of us on that floor that became fast friends. Colleen, Krissie, Chris, Joan, Kaye, Judy, Beth, Ann and myself.