I chose this today to celebrate someone that I gained in the past year.  I don’t want to call her an ‘internet friend’ I would like to just think of her as a friend…but since we have not yet met face to face what other option do I have.

I remember our first conversation of 3 plus hours…on the first day that I called your number.  I remember my sides hurting from laughing so much.

I’d always felt a good vibe from your fmails…but to finally put a voice to the words was incredible.

I didn’t know then that it would develop into what it has, I just knew you were real, funny as hell, crazy…and that for me is a winning combination.

I know what I can and can not ask of you, and I appreciate that.  You don’t leave me room to be disappointed because I always know who and where you are.

I think the absolute best thing is…that after this year?  We are STILL learning about one another.

I can remember a talk we had in the fall that made you go oh I had no idea…and just the other day you made me go oh I had no idea.

That is a good friendship.  That things can tumble out of the closet, and you don’t go running the other way, you either help them get the bones back in the closet, or you get the broom to clean it up since there is no longer a need to hide.

It hasn’t been without bumps in the road…but no relationship is, not even between friends.

I love that you are perceptive and empathic, although the one thing I would change …. if I were in the business of changing folk …. is that you would look at one situation differently.  I know that you won’t and I will respect you for it.  I would still like you to soften that one position though.  If you never do?  Fuck it…I don’t toss out the baby with the bathwater, I will just work around it.

But this is important to me, as you are and I don’t want a work around.

What I am even more grateful for other than your total awesomeness is the gift that you gave me.

I am still learning how to ride…but the ride is the best that I have had in 38 years.

I can never properly repay you for it…but I will continue along this path.  It is the right one for me.

Since I started walking it though things have been tough at times for us.  What should make us closer pushes between us as I grow and evolve and learn.  I would hope that as I get my legs under me, things will change, but who knows right?

I will give you credit…you are right about so many things.

There are a couple things you are not right about though.  I will never have the chance to prove it to you, but a while back I realized that I did not have to make a showing of proof.

Those last couple months of 2010 were the most beautiful AND the most ugly of my life.  What has emerged in 2011, is a state of mind that it no longer matters.

I won’t ever again attempt to tell you and show you WHY what you THINK you know is not the truth, about any of us involved…I will just accept that you believe it and chant that one day when it is revealed to you the flaw that it doesn’t take us back to that place we were at before.

I am looking forward to what 2011 has in store for us…I think it will be one hell of a ride.  And I am grateful that I have you to share it with.