And on the eighth day, God created...

the internet. It's a wondrous thing, is it not?

I always thought I was pretty forward on all the computer stuff. I mean, this is how I grew up. But I find that I’m crawling my way into the 21st century.

I remember going to computer time as early as 4th grade. Our elementary school was one of the first in the district to have a computer lab. It was experimental. You know to make sure the whole computer thing was going to stick. We worked on 1st or 2nd generation Apple computers doing very simple learning programs. But we were cool.

I also remember taking a computer word processing class in high school. I had already taken typing, in which we actually typed on, you know, typewriters. But that experience in WordPerfect did little to really prepare me for the real world of computers.

I actually had quite a bit of computer exposure through my schooling years since my mom taught computer science and all. But most of what she did was WAY over my head and out of my league. Still is.

BTW - Did you know computers have their own language? I thought they all spoke English since that’s what shows on my screen.

I really started using computers, though, on a regular basis in college as I was writing papers and doing all manner of projects on PowerPoint by the time my senior year rolled around. However, Al Gore still had not invented the internets at that point and the email and I, we were not close friends yet. Oh, I had an email account through the school that I accessed one time, I think. But email was not the common thing that it is today.

(Yes, I hear you young-uns whispering about how old I must be.)

My love relationship with email and the internet came several years after college while I was working in banking. Once I quit my job when my first child was born, I told my man that I HAD to have a computer and internet access at home. So he was kind and got me hooked up with dial-up.

What a mighty good man he is!

And now, here I am, tapping away on my lap-top that is wirelessly hooked into my lightning fast cable internet. I have a blog, I am on twitter, and I just last week, set up a facebook account. I honestly have no idea what I’m doing with any of it… but here’s something I’ve noticed.

I have met some really neat people on the internet.

My first experience was after Sarah’s birth and also in the wake of 2 miscarriages in the fall of 2001… 7 years ago. I found a wonderful community of women on babycenter.com. I could talk to people who had children born in the same month/year as Sarah. And then, I was able to talk to other grieving moms who had or were currently experiencing the same things I was. Even to the point that there was a specific place for those of us who had experienced multiple miscarriages.

After a period of time, I moved on from that community, having not really made lasting friendships there, but having had the opportunity to write a lot of what I was feeling at the time… before blogs were a “thing.”

I didn’t return until a few years later when I found out I was pregnant again. I was terrified. I didn’t want to, but I went back to that online community of multiple miscarriages for support. And support, I found.

And talk about friendships. There is a group of us that still keep in touch.

So I have been well familiar with internet relationships for a while. However, it has only been in recent weeks that the internet world has become reality for me.

I had the opportunity to meet several of you at the LPL conference and Siesta Fiesta in San Antonio. However, as we all know, due to circumstances out of my control, I was not able to really spend any appreciable amount of time with many of you. And that really bummed me out. Totally.

But I got to have lunch today with a very special blogger friend. I honestly don’t even know how we found each others blogs. You know, click here, then there, then, oh, this is interesting. And whammo, the next thing I knew, we had totally connected.

And what a joy, to sit there, across from someone and be able to just chat away having never met her before face to face.

But we know each other. Just like I’ve gotten to know many of you. And I long for this to be a place where we can share, cry, and laugh until we snort or blow milk out of our noses.

Because we're friends.

And that's what friends do.