So, if school was hard in high school, where did I fit in? For me, in ye olde 1988-1992, the answer was indisputably St. John’s Presbyterian Church. The youth group there, made up of Brandon Wert, Ryan Hartzog, Karen Andrews, Holly Acree and many, many beloved others was sometimes more my home than home was. My mom loved church, too, and so she’d get up early to take me to first service, where I sang (badly) in the choir. Missy was our choir director, and she ruled the place with the kindest, nicest, tenderest iron fist you’ve ever met.

She was single, a rarity for grown women in my circle (well, my mom was single, but due to divorce — Missy had never been married). She made us memorize our music — all of it — for church EVERY WEEK. She made us SMILE when we faced the church. She made us practice twice a week, and made it fun and work. She taught me the value of being prepared, even if it was in an area you weren’t excellent in.

My clearest memory of her is how beautiful she looked, in jeans and a regular t-shirt, conducting our motley crew of sullen teenagers into beautiful, beautiful music. She had this tiny, gently rounded belly, and I thought between that and her hard will and gentle style she was a beacon of what womanhood could be.

And somewhere in our sophomore or junior years, she met Lloyd. Memory fails on where — it was before the internet, so not online like I met my husband — but they fell for each other hard. When we were away at choir camp that summer, we would all walk to the pay phone with Missy and then tease her mercilessly while she talked to LLOYD as we called him, in a singsong voice. I was thrilled she found a guy who knew how awesome she was, and  worried that he would take her from us.

This picture, where I look so happy and loved with my dear Holly Acree and Karen Andrews, was taken at Missy’s wedding, at a ranch far from Houston. There was line dancing, and barbecue, and so many pretty dresses. There was joy and celebration. And thought I thought of Missy as possibly the oldest single person in the UNIVERSE, I think she was probably all of 28 or so when she married. Lloyd did eventually take her from St. Johns, moving to Katy or some other far off suburb where they found a new church, and giving her the babies she wanted. But not before I starred with Holly in a high school church musical that toured as far as ARKANSAS and not before I graduated.

Missy remained one of the most positive influencers in my life. She didn’t make me a better singer (that was just about impossible) but she made me a better person, willing to tackle difficult challenges and smile while doing it. She sings in my heart still.

College. Oh college. Texas A&M, 1992-1995. This was where I truly found my people and my place. My people! From freshman year, meeting Mary Matella and Julie Polzer and Jana Sneller Bermudez (all within days of arriving at campus!), I felt immersed in the life of the mind, a life filled with laughter, a life filled with adventure and change and opportunity.

Part of this blossoming was after sophomore year, when I applied to work as an opinion columnist at The Battalion, the school’s daily newspaper. I didn’t get the job as a columnist, but they hired me as front-desk receptionist. In my first week they offered me a guest column, then allowed me to write one all summer, then I was hired. During this time, I met two people who would change my life. Erin Janell Hill, another columnist, is one of the truest, bluest, best, kindest, funniest, most ridiculous and tender and amazing person I’ve ever known. There will be more than one story about Erin during this year, but I’m going to start with the discovery of EMAIL and all of its glories.

Erin consulting with our editor, Sterling Hayman, in the Battalion newsroom.

With my truest friends, there is always a courtship period, much like falling in love. That time when you first recognize a like mind, and can’t get enough of it. For Erin and me, that fall of 1994 was an immersion in a friendship like no other. We can each talk more than almost anyone else can stand, and yet, constantly interrupting each other, I genuinely feel like I never hear enough from her (and even more wonderfully, believe she feels the same way about me). Those two years left when we were both at school, it sometimes seemed that something didn’t really happen to me until Erin knew about it.

Which led us to one night, in the grimy, ink-soaked basement room of The Battalion. At the time, Lyle Lovett, a former Battalion reporter, was married to Julia Roberts, so I was digging through the morgue (the history of all stories at The Battalion) trying to find his clippings. I could hear Erin’s laugher coming down the hall, so I ran out to meet her — gleefully.

As we walked into the room, chattering over each other, I urgently asked her if she had read my latest email. At the time, this meant a black screen computer, filled with type in green or orange letters (depending on the monitor) with no italics, bold or … emoticons (can you imagine a LIFE BEFORE EMOTICONS?). Yes, that’s right, we put things in all caps a lot.

Anyway, Erin and I were frequent and fervent email users — what I wouldn’t give to have that correspondence at hand now. All of those letters filled with the huge questions we considered and daily minutia we experienced since we had last seen each other. And we went to the ’email computer’ set in the back room — right next to the morgue — and she sat down to read my email. As she read it, she’d say responses out loud, and I, still fruitlessly digging through the files for Lyle Lovett’s articles, would laugh and respond. The feeling of warmth and love in that room was a moment I would pin and put in my heart every day if I could.

That ability to constantly connect with Erin back at the beginning of email seemed like the very best hope for what the Internet could bring: Developing friendships, nurturing friendships, empowering friendships. Erin still lives in Bryan, Texas, and we see each other as often as we can. Months go by between even a ‘like’ on Facebook, and yet the friendship we nurtured in those black-and-orange emails in 1994 still makes me glow with love. Knowing and loving Erin helped me see what wondrous possibilities life holds, and introduced me to one of the best people I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing.

I haven’t stopped smiling since I started typing this email. Oh, the joy of that yesterday.

Melissa McDonald was everything I wasn’t. Tiny in stature, with amazing blond ringlets and a charming, subtle way about her, she was my much admired friend in middle school. I liked her, I thought she was funny, and I was also in awe of her: She just had it all together. She had a crush on a HIGH SCHOOLER! She and her sister Kim (pictured, with me the giant in the middle) were best friends, even though Kim was TWO YEARS OLDER! These distinctions were big deals among the kids of Sidney Lanier Middle School in Houston, Texas in the mid-1980s.

Melissa lived in one of the coolest parts of town, West University, on Robinhood (I still remember the number, too) (I ADORED this girl!). She had two much younger sisters, and all four of them lived with their parents in a house that was apparently much smaller than other houses in West University. This was a source of some embarrassment to Melissa, and she had a strict, never-broken, no-visitors-allowed policy. I worked on getting an invitation to her house for years — I don’t know why, I thought being in the inner sanctum would signal, finally, acceptance of some sort that I was so desperate for in middle school (this story takes place a very long time before I learn that acceptance comes from within).

So one day, after years of being friends, Melissa agrees to have me over. I plan what I’m going to wear, and what I’m going to do, as if it is a visit to the White House. At her house, after my mom dropped me off, she put a blindfold on me, very tightly, and led me through her house to her and Kim’s room.

When I entered that sanctuary (with absolutely no peek to any other part of the house), I was entranced. I still remember with absolute clarity their gorgeous, jewel-like room, neat as a pin and with so many personal effects for the two most glamorous people I knew. We stayed there for hours, talking and laughing and just — being. It felt so good, to be trusted with entrance to a very beloved and private place. I felt like I had earned some star of approval. When my mom picked me up (with the blindfold in reverse, although I begged and wheedled to get to see more of the house …), I was glowing and floating.

Sometimes, in my dreams, I still think about that room. It’s a place I sometimes go to in my fondest times, a place where I feel happy, included and trusted.