“good times are coming, Kristine….good times are a comin’.”

Today wasn’t one of the better days. In fact, at the end of the day on the way home I decided it was time to just lose it.  I cried the whole hour plus on the way home.  I’m sure if you were one of the many unfortunate souls that had to drive next to me, you would be thinking I had just lost a whole football team in a tragic plane crash.
It wasn’t just the tears that were streaming down my face, but the body shaking sobbing that accompanied the tears.

I questioned every thing I have ever said or done in the last seven years of my life.

As I approached the entrance to the freeway, I decided to take the long way home.  Dan had called and said he had picked up the girls and was taking them to karate.  The house would be empty when I got there and the depression that I had not experienced in nearly a year came flooding back with a vengeance.
It was then I decided I was going to take a left and go my old stomping ground; an old folks bar that had one time been my second home.   Surrounding myself with strangers that could look at my life and giggle and say, “Sweetie, you haven’t seen anything until you’ve survived the depression, wars or putting your parents to their final resting place.”  sounded exactly like what I needed.  It was the place you go where everyone knows your name. “The Tree”.

As I walked in through the back doors, I still had tears in my eyes and my make up was on its last legs.  Across the bar I saw what I can only describe as a figment of my imagination.  He stood up and the smile on his face assured me that it wasn’t a figment, but God’s way of saying, “I know things are hard right now, here…this is for you.”   I walked around the bar into the open arms of a friend I haven’t seen in probably eight years.
“WHAT IS UP!?” He sat me down and saw that I had lost my spirit and the string that was holding me together had clearly snapped.
“My husband left me and my whole world sucks balls!” I sobbed out.  He then laughed at me.
“Well, you’re done crying.”  He laughed again and ordered my drink that I wasn’t going to drink.

We spent the next five minutes in the smoking section where I sat in awe as he made me laugh at the old times we had been the best of friends.
I grabbed my phone and said, “This isn’t right until we have our other friend here.”  I called up the third part of our three musketeers and he said, “I’m on my way.”

If you would have told me an hour before I would be laughing so hard I had to spit my drink out, I would have never believed it.  There are no words that could have consoled me.
We gathered the last part of group and things were finally complete.

“We got the band back together!”  He laughed with us.

The odds of me finally snapping, turning my truck into the old stomping ground, him being in from out of town and  our other friends able to set everything aside to get together for two whole hours was not a sign from God that everything is going to be alright….it was a billboard.
I had lost my faith on my way home today.  In that poem it says, “I was walking along with you the whole way.” but sometimes it’s hard to see the footprints when the waves are crashing around your feet.  Tonight I saw all the footsteps.  I thanked God on the way home. I thanked him for not just being there for me right now, but for showing me he was there.

Do I believe that because I had a chance encounter with an old friend that things are going to be alright and we are all going to be able to hang out and we are all going to be there to heal each other again?  No.  We all have our own lives to live and that time years ago when we were best of friends, we were healing each other from the disasters that we were in the middle of.  Things have changed and we all grew up.
For two hours though, it was as if the seven years we were had been apart were never there.  All the same jokes and one liners were caught and delivered flawlessly.   We fell into the  place where we all felt like no matter what happens next we were all okay with.
Friendships were mended and hope was restored.

For two hours I laughed.   I laughed on a day when I thought I would never be able to laugh again.

My friends said, “Good things are coming, Kristine. Good things.”

I believe it.