My homegirls

These are my Berry Girls. (Top: Allison, Kelly, Jolynn; Bottom: Me, Jan, April, and Amy F.) There are seven of us. I have been extremely blessed in my life to have some really wonderful friends. Today, I have many "groups" of friends that are tremendously special to me: the girls I grew up with at Briarlake, the girls I shared law school and/or the early years of my law career with, and so on. But I've been on a trip down memory lane with the Berry Girls recently. We had dinner together last Thursday night and got to talking about how long we've been getting together and all the photos we've taken with one another over the years. During our time together last week, we ended up at the Cheesecake Factory for 2 pieces of cheesecake, a few cups of coffee and a LONG time at the table. One of the girls apologized to the waitress for holding on to the table for so long and she said, "Oh, that's ok. I could tell yall were a bunch of homegirls catching up" or some such thing. It tickled us. I have never thought of them as my homegirls, but maybe they are. But, I digress...

Anyhow, I knew I had some of the earliest photos of the group, so I set about the task of culling through my many boxes of photos from college and beyond and pulled some of my favorites. I posted them on Facebook, but if you are not on Facebook, I have created an album of them under the Albums link as well. I cannot tell you how much these women and I have experienced together over the last 18 years (yes, we recently realized that we have now known each other as long as we didn't know each other before college). These are the women who give me laughter, understanding, laughter, encouragement, laughter, wisdom, laughter, tears, laughter... well, you get the picture. Don't get me wrong. These are not the only friends who provide those things for me. I have many other wonderful friends. But this group of girls has made a commitment over the last, well, many years to never let too much time pass before we are together again. I am so grateful for these girls. And, I hope they are still my friends after I make these photos of them public since some of the other things we have experienced together are big hair, silly hats, lots of matching pajama purchases (don't ask), waaaay out of style Christmas sweaters and Christmas jumpers - with the impossibly big embroidered collars - (who knew those would ever go out of style?) and the list goes on....

I love you, my "Berry Girls!" Here's to many more years of embarrassing photos and matching pajamas. I hope I can always be there for you and that you will always be there for me.