Meeting friends

This is rather pertinent to my current feelings, one of the many oddnesses of me.

Whilst in San Francisco I had the very great privilage of meeting a dear friend who I have spoken to online (albeit briefly) most days in the last two years. My landlady's best friend who became a very dear friend of mine. When I had confirmed my plans to take the boy to San Francisco we had excitedly agreed to meet up, somehow. It was far too close to not do otherwise even though she would be the one having to travel into town.

So, after much arranging (thank heavens for internet in hotels) there I was sat, sitting on a wall in Union Square waiting for her. The kids happily off with my parents to tour who knew where whilst I had my grown up day. I had taken the cable car up from where we were staying in Fishermans Wharf. Predictably I was very early as (despite the amount of times I end up late :P) I always try and give myself extra time when it's somewhere I don't know. So that gave me extra time to get nervous. To worry. To get more nervous whilst I wandered around and then waited.

This is what struck me as ridiculous about the whole thing and how I was feeling. I have wandered around a dungeon in a leather thong and corset and tail in the USA. I wandered around the same hotel in tartan mini-skirt and stockings and heels. I was fine, very little nervous... and yet here, meeting a friend who I had spoken to online for two years, who I knew inside out, intimately. Who knew me the same and still liked me... Here, I was anxious and nervous to the point of feeling sick. Tummy totally churning, shoulder muscles screwed up. I guess in the end the reason I was so more nervous was because it mattered. I knew her and it mattered to me how we got on, how she reacted to me in person rather than from far away. In the convention I didn't care, I would never see them again. But her opinion mattered.

In the end though we had a lovely few hours and I was glad to have met and hugged a dear friend. Definitely a highlight of my trip and one I am very glad to have had chance to have.