Our home is absolutely filled with gifts from my friend Kerry: tee-shirts, cookbooks out the wazoo, shopping totes, pretty bits of d?cor; recently, she sent me an adorably frilly apron, and sometime in the winter holiday season, she inevitably sends us a box of cookies and treats that literally puts the sugar on top of having a pastry chef for a friend.
Her home is much the same: photography by Rob, pottery by friends, random magnets and d?cor that just struck me as ever-so-Kerry.
Kerry and I have consoled one another through the lost of pets, friends and family over the course of our eight-year friendship. We have celebrated wedding anniversaries, new jobs and random accomplishments. When times call for it, we are in daily contact, and when life has settled into rote routines, we may go months with no contact at all.
For all of that, I wouldn?t recognize Kerry if she were standing right next to me. In these eight-plus years, we have never met in person and I have only seen one picture of her in which she was bundled in winter clothes and was little more than a dot shoveling snow in the back of the scene. We have never even spoken on the phone.
Kerry and I met on a Weight Watchers message board shortly after Rob and I got married. (Yeah, I know it?s traditional to lose weight before the wedding but if you think there?s much of a drop of traditional in me, we haven?t spent enough time communicating!) We started chatting because we both had chef hats as one of our three badges WW allows for personal expression, and quickly moved to email to avoid filling the boards with the chatter of our blossoming friendship.
Except for the fact that our relationship is entirely digital, it has followed the path of most friendships: the more we emailed, the more we discovered we have in common ? like both being married to computer guys 14 years our seniors and both having pets for kids ? and the fun that comes from our dissimilar traits ? like how Kerry and her hubby are such music nuts that in eight years I haven?t come across a single band they didn?t hear ages ago, often live and from right in front of the stage.
I was thinking about Kerry while reading the discussion in the comments on Ruth Cassell?s most recent guest post with us, Check yourself before you check your phone (again), in which the question of digital-only relationships are possible. I?m going to have to give that one a great big Yes Absolutely.
That adorable cat up there is Frankie, a long-time member of Kerry?s family who will live in our hearts forever, even if Rob and I never did get to scratch his ears before he passed.?
Sarah Beth Jones is the co-owner and lead cheerleader of No BS. Microbusiness and writing are two of her passions; tell her about yours on the Nary Ordinary Facebook page!
SBJ
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