missing in plain sight...

Tonight while talking with my best friend, he told me something new about me. This does not happen very often. We speak frequently and have weathered some crazy over the past 5 years. He is the person who knows me better than anyone and the person that I can tell anything (and frequently do, at least a couple times).

We were talking about the time immediately following my Dad's death and the interaction that we had at that time in our friendship. At one point in the conversation, he said that he would leave my house with a sense that he missed me. He did not miss the physical person that he had just held and had been snotted upon by, but, he missed the Amanda that he knew until July 27, 2008. The Amanda that laughed and made sense.

This was a bittersweet thing to hear. I am sad that I became a person that was unrecognizable to those most familiar to me and sad that I was such a mess for so long. I am sad that my Dad is not here and that I am still working through what that looks like. The good that I gleaned from this conversation is that I have returned from this place, not the same person, but, someone who is fun to be around and who is stronger for the next challenge. I also realized that I am a blessed person to have friends who had to "miss" me and adjust to a new version, but, who still showed up.