About a decade or so ago, I started a book blog and made some truly amazing friends. They found me through our shared love of romance books. I used a silly pen name back then because I was worried my rather uncommon last name would be easily searchable, and my husband’s rather conservative clients might not approve of his wife’s hidden talents. Making myself vulnerable and outing myself to a small group of blog readers was a huge deal, but eventually, I did, and it has been one of the greatest joys of my life. These ladies and I have been through pretty much everything, and we are scattered all over the globe. We have been through birthing babies, loss of parents, marital upsets, defiant children, terrible bosses & in-laws, near-death illnesses, job promotions, and job loss. And now, of course, a global pandemic. What started out as an online friend group grew into something so special I have no words to describe it. Our ages range from the mid-30s – early 50s, some of us are married, some are not, some have little kids, grown kids, teenagers, and no kids. We live everywhere, from the east coast, the west coast in the US and Canada, the UK, and Australia – from big cities to small rural towns. Our diversity can be seen best in our range of entertainment likes and dislikes. There isn’t a movie, tv-show, song, a genre of books, or a sub-genre of romance that we haven’t agreed to disagree on as a whole, yet! These women have my whole heart, they challenge me, keep me sane, call me on my bullshit and make me laugh every single day. I have romance books to thank for my best friends. We’ve been doing this whole tele-friendship thing for a long time, and we are pretty darn good at it!
Our mode of communication started in the comment section of the old, retired blog and moved to a ridiculous amount of email threads. Later we found Viber, and we were off to the technology races! We even had a podcast for five years, back before podcasts were cool! Viber was retired, and Slack became our thing. My Slack app always logs the most screen time in those damning reports that like to tease us during this tedious time at home! My girls and I have been keeping in touch while keeping everything together on our respective home fronts since the shelter at home phase of COVID-19 started. Our daily check-ins are a source of comfort for me. But last weekend was especially difficult for me. I’m not sure what set me off, and I don’t know if it was one thing or just the culmination of everything but, the reality of our new normal slammed into me in a way I wasn’t fully prepared to handle. It leveled me. So I did what came naturally and reached out to my girls, my sisters in books, my best friends, and threw up the white flag. Those awesome and amazing women did what they do best, they found a way for us to be together, across oceans and time zones. Our resident tech nerd Lo sent us a link to HouseParty, and within minutes a bevy of beautiful, smart faces appeared on my phone. To say it was glorious and filled my soul with goodness and light would be an understatement. Unlike Skype or Hangouts, which we used in the past for podcast recording, HouseParty splits the screen between you and the people you are video chatting with in your “room.” And, unlike some other video gathering apps, it’s free for multiple users without a time limit. I am nothing if not frugal!