SYNCH OR SWIM

It's been a week since I found out a tree-I-didn't-know-I-loved had been chopped down.

The strength of my reaction to this news has been surprising. I'd never given it much thought when it had been there, it had just always been there. But now, the giant stump and clumsy, deferential curve in the sidewalk give a little twinge every time I pass by, the latest in a string of ties to my childhood that have come unbound, recently -- which is super melodramatic, but also kind of true, and pretty aptly representative of my state of mind as I attended the first of my close friends' baby showers.

Don't get too excited, this is not the story of how I had an existential melt-down and ruined my friend's party. This is the story of how just when I was spiraling over the fleetingness of everything, I found myself surrounded by some of my all-time favorite women, on a really happy occasion. How, just by their presence, they made me feel as safe, and loved, and silly, and grounded, and uncomplicated as I did when we were kids together. How even though the world moves so fast and the rules change every day, the important things, the true things, remain. Constant. And just because a knot comes untied, doesn't mean the lace will unravel.