Happy Birthday AudraLynn

40.

It’s a thing. I don’t care where you are in your life, how you feel about yourself, or the  level of your self esteem. Turning 40 is…a thing.

Get it. Get your head wrapped around it. Get on with living.

Today starts the few days a year when my best friend and I share the same age.

She’s being properly launched into the new decade down in New Orleans, surrounded by the man that she loves and the friends that complete their foursome. She’s soaking up the sights and the sounds, being approached on the street for some girl lovin’ and eating up the flavors she’s dreamed about for years.

Everyone needs a launching like this.

She deserves it.

We’ve been through a lot, she and I. We’ve seen the boys come and the boys go. We’ve seen births and deaths and marriage and divorce. Through Julia Roberts movies and inside jokes…we’ve kept time.

There are people in your life that sustain you. Whether you talk every day or every six months. They are the connection, the thing that keeps you from forgetting who you were when you were becoming who you are.

We are a witness to life.

For the last 26 years, knowingly…unknowingly…a witness. A backup. A force.

I cannot possible imagine what the next 26 will hold.

Happy Birthday my friend.