The impact of a good friend..

I believe we all go through life and regardless of the circumstances we are impacted by those who surround us...for better or worse. Now definitely we can choose/determine how we allow others to impact us....but sometimes we are impacted without even realizing we have been.

Today I was at Walgreens picking up a prescription and I walked through the magazine isle. I figured I would look for a Sudoku book while I was there (MSLTs give you a lot of down time and my boss said "bring a book"). I didn't find the kind of sudoku book I was wanting but instead my eyes ran across a small cook book for freezeable meals. I have an absolute, need a 12 step program, addiction with cook books and new recipes. So yes, I got it. This simple little thing, reminded me of my dear friend Ashlie and how much I miss spending time with her.

When I moved with Ben to Winchester, it was the first time I had ever moved from home... I consider myself a little shy and I did not make friends quickly....let me rephrase....I didn't make friends. Winchester had a lot of older people...church had a lot of middle age to older couples...there were very few young people for us to associate with. All I had were Ben, my in laws and work. And for a while this was just fine. Although I didn't work at the Urgent Care but a brief period before the sleep lab opened, I got to know a lot of the girls over there. Ashlie was always so sweet. We would talk about what I was learning in regards to sleep medicine and she was genuinely interested in whatever you talked about. She struck me as a very sweet girl. Time passed and Ashlie showed more and more interest in Sleep. Eventually she joined us on the "dark side" and I trained her to work with me when my sister in laws moved away.

Ashlie and I worked together so well. It was easy to talk to her through a 12 hour shift. Conversations weren't forced and even if we had silence, it wasn't awkward. We quickly became close, CLOSE, friends and to this day I think of her as another sister. She is someone, who unbeknownst to me, has impacted my life for the better. We had so many wild antics while working together....so many fond memories. These memories will occasionally stop me in my tracks and make me laugh when I do something or go somewhere that triggers a memory...kinda like my trip to walgreens. I used to bring cook books in to work all the time to look through and Ashlie always laughed at me for my obsession.

So many memories: bobble head pens, softball in the control room, mario, TMI stories, singing My Girl at the top of our lungs while cleaning patient rooms in the morning, scrapbooking, and the list could go on.

We moved from Winchester to Smyrna and I began working in Nashville. Ashlie had also moved and Winchester was too far for her to drive to work. So I encouraged her to join me in Nashville. She came on PRN and we got to work together there as well...although the environment wasn't the same, we enjoyed chatting across the room through texts...

A very long story short...Ashlie, you mean the world to me. You are like another sister....never have I had another friend like you. I always looked at Ben's friendship with Daniel with envy. I wanted that friendship where we were as close as kin and if unfortunate circumstances took us in different directions, we could pick up the phone and talk as if we still saw each other every day. I have had many friends through the years that were good friends, but not great... Some that I once thought were great, I have since realized never cared about me at all....It wasn't until we had moved to Smyrna that I realized how much of an impact Ashlie had really had on my life. She was one of those that impacted me without my knowledge...I had found what I always envied. I found a friend that I could trust my most intimate thoughts, and even if we didn't always agree, I knew she would love me regardless. Ash, you've been with me through good and bad and a simple stupid cook book today has reminded me again how grateful I am to have your friendship. I hope I am as loyal to you as you have been to me. Thank you for being you.

Alli's non-biological aunt

ok...Ash as a side note...this is incredibly sad that the ONLY picture I have of us together is this...I mean...dang...we need to remedy this....pronto!