Erica is younger than me, and when I first met her, I wanted to kick her shins in with my tap shoes. We both attended the same dance school growing up in suburban Miami called Kendall Ballet Arts. She was the adorable blonde STAR of the place, and I was the chubby brown newcomer in spandex. I canβt explain 10-year-old angst other than to say that itβs irrational and probably steeped in body or daddy issues. In my case, both.
Fast forward 30+ years later, and she is one of my closest friends.
(More in recent years than our past, which was rocky and sporadic due to different school districts and a philandering theater professor.)
She has stuck around through a lot of ebbs and flows in life but has always been a lighthouse pointing me in the right direction from whom to steer clear (aforementioned ex-boyfriend theater professor) to what path to take next (attending Miami Ad School as she did).
Here are a fraction of things worth mentioning about Erica:
Sheβs talented at every single thing she does. Her creativity truly knows no bounds. Writing, visual art, creative direction, graphic design, singing, dancingβ¦the list goes on and on and on.
She is the most unbelievable powerhouse of a mother to her two beautiful and brilliant neurodivergent sons.
She is a seer. She sees people for who they are, and she takes a deep and lasting interest in them. Never judging, but in a way that has the power to charge the core of your body into ascension through laughter and thoughtfulness alike. Itβs a superpower. Trust me.
And after what just happened, Iβm more certain than ever that she was sent to me from the magical Universe itself to, once again, lift me up and hurl my spirits into the fucking cosmos. πβ¨
If youβve followed anything Iβve written, posted, or mentioned in the last 6 months, you know Iβm mildly obsessed with the podcast Bandsplain and its incomparable host, Yasi Salek. You could call it a parasocial relationship, but why put labels on it, babe?
Well, on this particular day, as a belated birthday present, Erica gifted me a playlist curated by Yasi herself. I am reborn by this. I am knocked-off-my-socks-tumbling-toward-ecstasy by this. I am majorly and with reckless abandon fangirling about this in a way thatβs taken 10 years off my life.
This gift is literally all of my love languages wrapped into 1 hour and 5 minutes of playing time. But the sheer awesomeness of this present doesnβt end there.
Hereβs how it went:
So, I go check my email. And here is what Erica wrote to my favorite podcaster (at this moment in time) about me:
Iβm crying. I canβt believe the words chosen to describe me. Itβs beyond flattering and too much to live up to. I canβt explain the feeling when someone sees you, knows you, and knows the tiny details of your life that make you happy, the ones you think no one is paying attention to, and yetβ¦they are!
βI would love this playlist to feel like a walk in NYC on the perfect fall day, leather jacket on, coffee in hand, vape pen in pocket.β
What a perfect description. Because that perfectly describes what Iβd consider a perfect day. Of course, Erica would know that my favorite thing to do, my church, my RELIGION is walking in Central Park, high on *life* on a delicious fall day, with a coffee and goddamn gorgeous beautiful tunes playing in my pods.
That email alone is a gift.
But then Yasi respondedβ¦
I am unwell. Itβs too much. Itβs too much joy. A girl could burst. π₯
I firmly believe we have more than one βsoulmate.β I have many, and every now and then, they reveal themselves in little ways that mean a whole heck of a lot.
So, as the season of gift-giving wraps up, remember the greatest gift you could give someone is to make them feel truly, utterly, and unabashedly SEEN.
That is the greatest gift of all.
And to Erica, if youβre reading this,
Welcome to the soulmate team, my darling life-long friend. I adore you.
Love, me.
π₯Ήπ₯Ήπ₯Ή