Who's Got Your Back

Name three people. THREE. Influential or not, name three people in your life that will always, and I mean always have your back. Not three people you can count on for a beer, a cup of sugar, not those types, but THREE strong, permanent people in your life that you can rely on at all times.

Hard to do?

If you can name THREE people without hesitation and one of those is not your "lord and savior" then chances are you have found the three strongest people in your life and will have your back at all times. These individuals will not always bail you out of jail, lend you sugar, enjoy a pint at your local pub, these (at the very least) three people will have your back in some of the best and the worst low down times in your life.

The time and place of our world now is a setting of instant gratification, our worst times can be relieved at the quick stroke of  a keyboard or the click of the mouse, a pill, or a bottle, even our best of times are celebrated in such a way where the intimacy of person to person relations is completely removed.

Long gone are the days of having to thumb your way through the black laden and dyed yellow paper of an actual physical yellow pages, the warm printed scent of inked, dusty paper. Long gone are the days of nights for coffee, long chats on the phone often resulting in exorbitant phone charges and fees. Long gone are the days of an actual face-to-face interview, conversation, or meeting.

We have webinars, Twitter, conference call interviews with panelists, email, blogs, texts, and IM (Instant Messenger).

Truth be told I attended a function held by a local fellow blogger here in Phoenix, Kelly Loubet, you know her on Twitter as @Childhood and I was nervous. I. was. nervous. Why? Because I was actually going to meet face-to-face with someone who I had only acquainted myself with online. I was nervous and ecstatic all at once. The experience could probably compare to the first day of school or a mom date (moms night out). We held good conversation for being so late and only really talking online. I thoroughly enjoyed actually meeting someone who I had only met online. A thrill. A completely new realm for me.

My instance of meeting Kelly is out of the ordinary to some, even for myself. I have always had fresh meetings with people I had never met before through mutual acquantainces or friends, a meeting with someone that I had met online was very foreign, scary, new, exciting and wonderful all at the same time. Some people spend their entire existences talking only online, never engaging in face-to-face moments or settings, but rather a proverbial sea of type-written text.  However, others do meet in a standard fashion, some positive, others not as positive. But one would have to wonder, have we really lost the personable touch, the guarantee of the people we meet that certain individuals may be subliminally and quite possibly divinely chosen to be our guardians, the ones who always have our backs or maybe just friends, casual acquantainces, best friends, future colleagues, networking associates.

I recently experienced a tragic loss. A loss I have never felt, experienced, and I know more are coming in my life, I am bracing for these losses. I did not know who to turn to first in my grief, in my loss, who did I pour my heart and soul to, WHO had MY BACK?

1. My husband. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt I married my best friend. I turned in my shock, my awe, my silenced sadness and grief. Burning eyes and breaking heart. The empty filling my chest. The inability to take a full breath as if the weight of the world was placed on my chest. The slow taste of bile rising in my throat with every swallow I took in my grief.

2. My step-dad. I drove to my mothers the night of my loss. A loss truly that I did not share alone, shared truly with some many others, but all I felt was my pain, and I needed to be with my family. On my way to my mother's house I picked her up from a gathering she was at with my step-dad. I needed my mother, her aura of comfort and the consciousness of "everything will be okay" even though every cell in my body felt otherwise. She was at a gathering with my step-dad. We waved our hellos as I chauffeured my mother to her house, but I knew I had to stop. I honked the horn got out of the car and ran into the arms of my step-dad. I needed a hug. I knew I didn't have to say a word. I never have had to say much to him, he knew. He knew my pain, he knew my loss, he knew I needed his strength and that he always had my back. Despite all of our differences, pains, and angst's we have shared together, he has always had my back.

3. Jen. Our friendship began as a "friend of a friend" but as time has passed a bond has developed. One I had not ever truly taken notice. I have found in my growing age that I do a lot more watching, listening, I am more aware. I became more aware of the bond I had formed with my friend. That her pain that she felt, is feeling, is still reeling to control as waves splash over her from time to time, are now my pain. The burning emptiness, the drive in life that we both share, our unyielding love and loyalty to our friends and family, she and I are one in the same. Unlimited amounts of time can pass and we would never know any different. I knew at this point in my life that Jen had my back. I KNEW I could confide in her at all levels. No matter what. Day or night, even if I never did confess my deepest confidences, I knew I always could.

I am also lucky enough to share a growing bond with a few groups of women on different spectrums of my life. More and more as time passes and with each encounter, I know, I can count on these women. But sadness will wave over me that the people I thought I could confess to are not who they appear to be. Blood is not always thicker than water and those bonds, quite frankly are saddening. With the loss of my dear love, my grandfather, I too lost dream. That one day a family would be united. At the services I watched. I watched generations of family bonded by blood and divided otherwise. Knowing that the other did not have their back, generations of siblings and parents, children and grandchildren, bonded and divided. I wasn't sure what really was more wrenching, the pain in the loss of my family patriarch or the loss of ties, bonds, love because you knew no other because of the genial ties that bind. Saddened too because of the lack of connections. Our family had now become a network, "just Facebook me," "send me a text," "tweet me," "email me" the time felt as if we no longer had that connection. We now were just rolled into the sea of social networking, no longer a famillial unit, but networkers within our own genial lines.

So when you think you know who has your back you might possibly be mistaken. In times of loss and greatest successes do you know who has your back, who shares in your joy, knows your pain. The sixth sense is always the gut instinct, your gut will tell you of friends and foes, confirm your fears and doubts, and will enforce that the human touch, the human interaction, the ability to sympathize and empathize are beyond more than an email, a text, a Tweet. Something very few can exhibit personally and virtually.

With that I am blessed to know that "durdles" will mean more. A laugh is the cure for the soul. Not only do we have friendships but we have been chosen as the ones to watch each others back. These fabulous individuals just know. They know your fears and doubts, give you a hand up when you are down, respect you.
And we know who's got your back.