Business Friendships, The New Kind of Girl Talk

I've had the same best friend since I was about 9 years old.  We've been in a 19 year friendship.  We grew up on the same block and we have seen each other through life's most toughest situations for example puppy love, being bullied, and family drama.  Sometimes you wind up lucky enough to meet someone at such a young age and are able to maintain those friendship bonds throughout life.  I moved from that neighborhood when I was 16 years old and we thought our friendship would dwindle.  I was on my old block basically everyday until she ended up moving and we realized we were old enough to not need a common living space to keep us together, the bond had already formed.  She is my older sister.  Since before we met, we both had been living out our dreams.  When you're a child, everyday is a new opportunity to figure out what your passions are.  She is an artist.  The day I met her she was drawing in a sketch book and I happened to be outside writing in my journal.  We never thought anything of it, until recently.  When you're a kid you just want to have fun.  You start to realize the things you are passionate about begin to become less of a hobby and more of a necessity.  I dealt with a lot of my emotions at a young age by either dancing my heart out, I studied Ballet, Jazz, and Tap religiously for 10 years, or writing pages in my diary/journal.  Johanne, that's the artist, did the same thing.  She drew on everything.  People's homes, their cars, the light pole on our street, the sidewalk, the walls in her room (yes on the actual wall itself), and pretty much any blank canvas.  You could not find any one of her notebooks without full pages of artwork in between lessons.  She never really focused in school and coming from an academic family, she struggled with figuring out who she was.  I come from a place where dreams are not good enough to be used as actual jobs so I was struggling as well but the difference was I was pulling As while doing it.

Because Johanne never focused in school she was counted out as being lazy, but she isn't.  School did not fit into her dreams, literally.  She would complain and you could see her trying to do her best but it just wasn't for her.  I went on to the a private college where I dorm-ed for 4 years and she got a job at a very known ad agency in New York City.  None of the things that made us different from one another ever kept us apart.  I would call her job in between classes to tell her something random and she would send me AOL Instant Messages all day long like "Omg I hate this place" or "Hey yea so I took a nap for 2 hours and no one noticed".  I would come to her job for lunch when I was on break during the Summer and she was most present at my college graduation.  We kind of appreciated each other much more because of this.  It is like getting an inside look into someone else's World and get to learn from their mistakes, and vice versa.  While she was at the ad agency in what she considers her free time, she wrote and illustrated an entire Children's book.  When she initially told me about it, I honestly did not think it was something so complete, until I saw the manuscript.  I actually remember where I was, in her new house and it was either Memorial Day weekend or the 4th of July weekend.  I remember because it was the first time I had used my Facebook status to promote anything.  I was so in awe of her talent and creative gift, I had to tell everyone.  When I looked at the book I saw where she pooled her inspiration from and funny enough, it was her family.  I cannot disclose details about the book for copyright reasons but it set in motion a chain of thoughts in my head.  "What if we collaborate on a book?", I said. "Really, let's do it", she said.  And we never spoke more about it.  That was maybe 8 years ago.  

In 2011, we'd both hit the lowest points in our lives respectively when it came to careers and life.  We parted ways for two complete years, and it was not a pretty break-up.  Break-up makes it sound like a love relationship but when you're in a real friendship, well it all sort of feels like the same.  I had all of these student loans pending, and not a decent salary paying job in sight, and she was just at a lost, dealing with death in her family and a horrible 10 plus year relationship that had come to an end.  Still, she always drew and I would always write.  A few weeks ago, we remembered those kids who were so full of passion.  We are both entrepreneurs, living everyday for our dreams and goals.  Her artwork has already been shipped to multiple countries and she receives more and more recognition due to social media and sites like Instagram and Tumblr everyday.  We reconnected when she was having her son, my one and only Godchild, and everything else at that point seemed irrelevant.  We were happy for the women we had grown into.  The "break-up" not only pushed us into maturity but it also gave us that self reflecting alone time individuals desperately need to be okay with themselves.  It gave us the break from our comfort zones, which was essentially being around each other, and forced us to find out exactly who we wanted to be in this World. 

We laugh so hard at our past and we daydream so much about our futures.  The vacations we will take and the adventures we will go on.  Even the conversations that begin with small talk leads to inspirational conversations about how much we have to give to the World.  It is extremely refreshing to have a friend who is living the same life.  It makes us think beyond ourselves, were we destined to be friends? Was everything that happened to us that was shady, a lesson we needed to learn to prepare ourselves? Both Johanne and I can honestly look back and say hey I've come a long way and I have so much further to go.  We never thought we were afraid before but we know for sure now that we aren't.  At least we got over most of the fear that was debilitating us prior.  When I was 9 years old I met a great artist.  When she was 12 years old she met a great writer.

If you look way back into your past, I'm sure you will find that the path that you are on, was always meant for your footsteps.