SpiritWalk

I know my last post was about friends, but I guess I’ve been thinking about my friends a lot lately. So, I’m going to write about friends again, or to be precise, this post is going to be about one particular friend. My friend Debbie. Some people call your quirky, some call her zany and some folks even call her crazy. I call her my adopted Italian Sister, my partner in crime and friend. Some people have even compared us to an old married couple for the way we argue.

Debbie was raised in Queens, New York and you can pretty much guess that’s where she is from the moment you meet her. I love to tease her about how she mixes her ‘Rs’ and her ‘As’, when speaking. For example, Debbie says drawa instead of drawer. Last Christmas she was telling a story to my daughter about Santers Helpas. I asked her with a grin ‘What are santers helpas?’, she said ‘You know elves!’. Then I say with a bigger grin, ‘Well who in the world is Santer?’. ‘Around these parts we call that guy Santa.’ Oh, the Italian hands went up in the air on that one.

Debbie sold her swank Soho apartment and moved to Boulder in the late 80s early 90s. The 5th daughter of Angelo, a New York taxi driver, and Carmella, a woman with a lot of style. Boulder didn’t know what hit it when Deb came to town, I still don’t think the city has quite recovered. I first met Debbie in 1995 while working at the local newspaper ‘The Daily Camera’ in Boulder. I worked in IT she worked in accounting. We became fast friends. Debbie is a very generous person with beautiful brown eyes, a big smile and a quick wit. She loves to do pretty much anything outdoors. Debbie’s 10 years older than me, but has about 30 years more life under her belt. She has traveled extensively, has had many jobs and is accomplished at many sports. She taught me how to ski double black diamonds, ride technical trails on a mountain bike and how to make a killer salad. My friends and I all attempt to make what we call ‘The Debbie Salad’, which always has at least one nut, one cheese, one fruit and a lovely homemade dressing. By the way, another accomplishment is the woman is a fantastic cook! We just had dinner at her house this past weekend where she served a smoked salmon straight from her smoker, with a lovely herb sauce, oven roasted potatoes seasoned to perfection and one of her famous salads. Believe me, there were no left overs.

Debbie has held jobs at many of the local iconic businesses in Boulder, Tom’s Tavern, McGuckin’s and the Daily Camera, to name a few. During the tech boom in the 90s Debbie went back to an earlier career of high tech head hunting. She was really rockin n’ rollin right up to the crash of the dot com industry in 1999. Those were some hard times for Debbie and she did a lot of soul searching to figure out what her next career would be. She decided to get into a career path that there are always jobs no matter where you are. Nursing. Debbie enrolled in nursing school about 5 years ago. Working part-time at hospitals and nursing homes, while going to school at the age of 45 proved to be very challenging, but a challenge Debbie was prepared to face head on. Debbie had not been to school in over 20 years, and for someone who never considered themselves a student, there were many times that she wanted to throw in the towel. Thanks to Debbie’s drive, courage and a large support system of friends, she graduated from nursing school last spring. At the nursing pinning ceremony my daughter Tori and I had the honor of ‘pinning’ her. I felt like such a proud Mother at that point, I couldn’t help but cry right along with Debbie. My 4 year old daughter was so perplexed why these two woman where balling there heads off at such a happy occasion. I was so happy for my dear friend.

Well, that’s not quite the end of the story. There’s a little pesky test called the NCLEX one must take in order to obtain a nursing license. This proved to be one last hurdle that Debbie needed to get over before starting her new career and life. Debbie’s biggest challenge, through out nursing school, was taking the tests. Debbie felt she was a terrible test taker and had such anxiety every time she had to take a test. The NCLEX is the Grand-Daddy of tests. It’s long, hard and doesn’t necessarily reflect what one learns in nursing school. Debbie was flat out scared to take that test, so not too surprising when she failed it the first time. It was heart breaking when she failed it a second time, probably one of her lowest points. I know she was ready to give up at that point, but she dug in deep and figured out what she needed to do to pass that test. The threat, ‘You will take that test again and if I need to I will get on a plane to Boulder and kick your ass’, from her childhood best friend Sheila may have been a bit motivational too. Thank goodness, the third time was the charm. She passed!!!!

Now I am happy and proud to say, my good friend Debbie is a full fledged nurse with a job at a nice hospital at the age of 50. How great is that? What an inspiration to anyone looking to follow a dream at any age.

I am truly a blessed individual. I have really nice husband, two fantastic kids, a great family and a lot of really wonderful friends. Friendships have always been very important to me. I have learned so much from my friends. They have taught me how to have fun, how to laugh at myself and the world. They have taught me how to down hill ski, cross country ski, cycle, cook, play volleyball, and in-line hockey. But mostly they have taught me how to love.

I have always considered many friends to be part of my extended family. Every holiday consists of my entire family of 18 and then our adopties, which usually includes Matthew, Debbie and Marie, but really anyone is welcome. We have the kind of house that there always people coming and going. The smart ones always come around meal time, because they know there’s always enough food for one more person. We have 4 or 5 regulars that come a couple of times a week, my Mother, our friends Marie, Matthew and Debbie. We have several families that we get together with on a regular basis. My kids adore these people. Pretty much every day my Daughter says, ‘Mommy, who’s coming over tonight?’, if I say ‘Nobody’ she puts on the big pouty face. Because of all the interaction my kids get they are not shy, they are articulate, they have many interests and they always feel comfortable in groups of people. My friends have been such a positive influence on my children.

My friend Matthew calls our large group of friends ‘a freak of friends’. He says, ‘you have your gaggle of geese, your prided of lions, your herd of cows and in our case we have a freak of friends’. I love that saying, because it is so true! Each one of us have are own little unique freaky side. We all have very strong personalities, are very opinionated and of course each of us thinks we are always right in our opinions. The great thing about my friends is that we can sit around and talk about hot topics and have really heated conversations over these hot topics and get really worked up and irritated at one another and then the subject can completely change into something warm and fuzzy and we’re all laughing and hugging. I love that we can all be different, yet appreciate the differences.

Let me close by saying ‘Thank you!’ to all my friends. You keep me honest, joyful, spiritual and happy!