Why I LOVE Blogging.....

When, I was in fifth grade, my neighbor down the street had their cousin, Mandi, come to live with them for a little while. She was from Oklahoma (funny, now my sister lives there). She happened to be in my class at school, and we were instant friends. We went everywhere together, spent all of our time together. Had sleep-overs, went to the mall (that was cool back then).
I remember that she went skiing and broke her leg, or her knee, or something, and was on crutches for a long time.
Interesting how little memories like that creep up on you.

After 5th grade, Mandi went back home to OK. We wrote for awhile, and went she came to visit in UT, we would get together. After a while, we stopped writing, lost touch, and went on with our lives.

In high school, she moved back to UT, and went to my high school. We were the same age, but for some reason or other, we never really hung out together. We ran in different crowds.

Now, how we reconnected after high school is a really funny story.

When I met Clint, he literally had a little black book, full of phone numbers. (He was kind of a womanizer back then. It took a lot of years, and effort to tame him).
Anyway, one day, while I watched him play softball with his buddies, I decided to go through his wallet (which he had entrusted to me to watch, while he played). I found his little black book. I started looking through all the different girls' phone numbers he had, until I came upon a name I recognized. Mandi's. I thought, for sure, this has to be the girl I knew all those years ago.

So, on the way home from the game, I asked Clint about it, found out it was a girl he'd dated awhile ago, and after talking about her for awhile, found out it WAS the same girl.
I wasn't jealous or anything, I just thought it was awesome that he had dated my friend. No wonder we were such good friends. Great minds think alike, huh?

A few months after we'd been dating, Clint got a wedding invitation from Mandi in the mail. He thought it would be weird to go, since he'd dated her. But, I begged him to go. So, we went together. It wasn't weird for me at all. I was reconnecting with my old 5th grade best friend at her wedding reception! I don't know if it was weird for Clint, or not.

After that, we saw each other intermittently over the years....she came to our wedding reception, and 2 years ago, I saw her at her cousin's (my neighbor's) funeral, who had passed away in a car accident.

Then, yesterday, I got an email from Facebook saying someone was requesting to add me as a friend, then I got an email saying I had a comment on my blog. It was Mandi.

I'm so excited to reconnect with her. Even though she lives on the other side of the country, we can talk through the web, like we're face to face.

This is why I love blogging. There are so many people that I wouldn't get a chance to talk to if it weren't for blogging. So many old friends, I've found. So many new friends I've made.