Trying to Sail my FriendShip

Making friends when you were a kid was so easy.

You live next door and your mom is pretty? I'm in.

Making friends in middle school was easy.

You are on my softball team and you have a hot brother? Let's do this thing.

Making friends in high school was easy.

You're attractive and rich and people don't bully you? Get in my car.


Making platonic friends as an adult is a non-starter. Basically, imagine that you're trying to find someone to marry you, but you have a 100% guarantee that they don't want to have sex with you. That's why friending is so much harder than dating. For the same reason that living with your boyfriend/girlfriend is so much easier than living with your platonic friend. You always had sex to make things better! Sex fixes everything!

I moved to Charlotte, NC 4 years ago, after having grown up in Edmond, Oklahoma for my actual entire life. Not only did I live in the same town for my conception and birth, I was there for kindergarten through high school graduation and then into college. Then, as though I hadn't given the city enough of my soul,  I was raising my own kids there! I basically had a best friend at every restaurant and retail store. Every time I went to Target, it was a high school reunion. My favorite bar was where everyone knew my name and had had sex with all my friends.

But there I was: 32 years old, mother of 3, and without anyone to come over and listen to my hilarious stories.

I noticed that the three girls who lived next door were pretty and were constantly bringing each other salads. They were probably a little younger than me but definitely not too fun for me. When we left our houses at the same time, I would try to make eye contact to no avail. One time I even tried to get adorable 2 year old Collins to yell something out to them as an ice-breaker. Even Collins wasn't here for my desperation.

We had been living there a little over a week when I noticed that we were unable to sit in the backyard anywhere, because we would get dive bombed by large satanic bees.

These were not the cute and fuzzy pollinating bees of yesteryear. They had a huge shiny black ass, and they would get close enough to you and hover; my dad even reached out and touched one. There has nary been one in Oklahoma, I can tell you that.

I am terrified of bees. I knowwwwwww they are good for the earth and for the lord and what not, but they also sting you when you're just trying to drink a juice box while playing soccer.

I decided they had to go. We had a wonderful back deck and tons of trees and we couldn't enjoy it.

Operation kill the bees.

I called my landlord to let him know about the bee problem and he said "Oh, they're just carpenter bees. They don't sting, the males can't even sting, they just dive bomb you to try to scare you away from their women, who are probably burrowed all over the deck and fence."

Oh, cool.

"Yeah, okay, I kinda want to kill them anyways."

He emailed his exterminator and copied me, and the exterminator wrote back and accidentally replied all:

"She wants to kill the carpenter bees! What a nightmare tenant, did you tell her about the males not being able to sting?"

I responded and said "I'm not a nightmare tenant in any way except in the ways related to bees. Thx."

Why is everyone in Charlotte a judgmental Apiculturist? 

I decided operation kill the bees was the best opportunity to make friends with the hotties next door. I could just "let them know" we'd be spraying or something to the effect.

It was about 1PM on a weekday and I knocked on the door. Anne answered, looked severely disappointed as though she had immediately assumed I was a salesperson. (How had she not noticed me eye stalking her for a week every time she walked to her car?) She looked past me and said "Oh, I only opened the door because I thought you were my roommate, she's bringing me a salad."

Me: *nervous af* Oh, no worries! I just wanted to introduce myself, my name is Mary and I just moved in next door.

Right at that moment, roommate with salad slid in behind me and passed Anne her salad and gave her a look like "eek enjoy her, you're on your own".

Anne: *nods* *raises eyebrows with minimal enthusiasm*

Me: Anyways, I wanted to see what you thought about our bee problem?

Anne: *raises eyebrows but now in a quizzical way*

Me: Have you been in the backyard lately? Our fences and decks are covered with them!

Anne: *Steps out on porch and looks back into the side yard* Oh yeah. We don't go back there.

Me: Okay, I just didn't know if y'all had cats or dogs or anything. They're coming to spray tomorrow. I also wanted to let you know they're carpenter bees, so they don't like pollinate or anything. *laughs* I was kinda wanting to make sure you wouldn't start a strike against me or something to save the bees. *laughs harder* because you know, these ones are just assholes and don't have to be saved.

Anne: Okay, thanks. I gotta go eat my salad real quick, I have to head back to work.

Me: Oh, of course. Me too! I work too. I'm an Account Exec- oh okay, bye!

Anne shuts the door.

I could only laugh at myself as I walked back to my house. I had not had to work to make friends in a loooong time and this was excruciating. Were all my Oklahoma friends just pretending I was fun because I was their only Oklahoma option?

A few days later, Ellis and Collins were playing in the front yard and I was sitting on the porch, on social media, connecting with the only friends  I had: cyber. I heard a car pull up next door and a beautiful girl got out. She immediately ran over to my yard and said "HI! I'm Nancy and I live next door! What's your name!?" to Collins and Ellis. They talked to her for a few enthusiastic minutes and then she walked over to the porch to talk to me.

She was a radiant beam of light. She had a gorgeous genuine smile that lit up the universe.

"I'm so sorry I haven't been by to introduce myself, my boyfriend took me to meet his parents in the Outer Banks so I've been gone all week but I couldn't wait to come meet you! I LOVE KIDS. If you EVER need someone to hang out with them, please come over and knock! My roommates don't love kids, but I swear I will come watch them for free at your house anytime. I CANNOT WAIT to have kids!"

I just smiled and nodded and took her in. I loved her immediately. I knew she was much younger than me and seemed more interested in my kids but I needed her in my life.

I asked how long they had lived there, how they knew each other, etc, and then complimented her on the gigantic hydrangea they had in the back. She popped on into the backyard and cut me a huge bouquet and brought it to me.

"We seriously never go back there, if you EVER want to go cut yourself some, please feel free to do so!"

She then headed inside and I pulled a Mary and got to stalking. I pulled up who owned the house, Anne, then pulled her up on facebook and found her friend Nancy. She was 24, wayyyyy too young to be friends with me but maybe I could make her my nanny? Or I could utilize her in some other way because she was a beacon of light in a friendless world.

Then I pulled up Nancy on linkedin.

This was my mistake. I forgot that you can see when people look at your profile on linkedin. Within 4 minutes of meeting her I had already figured out her last name and where she worked and the poor thing must have been terrified. She never brought her radiant face over again and moved in with her boyfriend shortly after.

My Oklahoma friends now use "I thought we could talk about the bees problem?" as a sharp notification that I'm being awkward and to stick with the friends I have.

Having lunch on a bee-free porch in 2016!

31 days

31 days left in an impossible year.

It seems unbearable to keep going for 31 days when I’m in so much pain. Pain that gets easily distracted because I am deeply loved and lucky enough to have more pleasant moments in my day than not.

I understand that people lose jobs. 

People lose loved ones. 

People make big moves (figurative and literal).

People feel big feelings they don’t understand.

I never thought I’d be one of those people.

How lucky am I to have gone 36 years without this kind of pain? I know so many who have felt this debilitating heartache time and time again before they even entered adulthood.

I feel guilty for making my pain such a “thing”. Why should I need anyone to care about what I feel?

I know January 1 doesn’t mean anything. I’m not going to magically feel like 2018 Mary again, or be able to pretend like 2019 didn’t exist. But it’s my goal date. My date of grace. To move to a different stage of my grief and sadness to where I can work harder towards being who I want to be for my kids, my husband, my parents, my friends, and my community.

I’ll be ringing in this new year harder than I ever have.

Company woman.

This is a picture from this day last year. We were in Chicago for a family vacation over Thanksgiving break. My husband, two daughters, and my in-laws spent the day sight-seeing and sent me this picture.

I remember looking at it a few hours after they sent it, and felt a longing in my soul to be there with them. I wanted the carefree smile of Collins’ freezingly cold rosy cheeks. 

But I couldn’t be.

I was working in the hotel room.

I knew my numbers were low and I had an impossible deal I was trying desperately to close. I had spent hours on the phone with an executive at my company, seeking advice and not wanting there to be ANY question that I was giving this my all.

We came up with a plan that failed. We talked to the customer again, And still came up short-handed. The customer was asking for something they shouldn’t be, but I was so desperate for those numbers that I was trying to defy logic. I was trying to make chicken salad out of chicken shit. I hadn’t slept the night before just thinking about how I would handle the objections that were to come.

My husband called me to tell me where they were going for dinner.

“Can you just bring me back something? I have a long email I need to get out before 6pm EST”

The disappointment in his voice was palpable, but he understood. He always did.

I spent over an hour crafting the perfect email, copying all the important people that would see it, that would know I was doing everything I could to save this deal. That NO MATTER WHAT, I was a company (wo)man.

It wasn’t saved, and I will never be in this adorable Chicago Thanksgiving picture from 2018.

That company fired me less than 6 weeks later.

Don’t ever make yourself loyal to a company who is not loyal to you. Put your family first. We never know when we are going to regret the moments we could have had with them. We never know when we might lose them.

I learned so much in 2019. ❤️

Sad but kinda appropriate :)

I couldn't put my finger on why I continue to post on social media about my brother. Sympathy makes me uncomfortable and every time I post about him, I cry.

He's dead.

I came to the conclusion that I selfishly do not want him to be forgotten. If everyone I know can remember just a little bit about him every so often, then at least he's a thought. A thought or a memory is far from getting him back, but it's also just as far away from nothingness.


When I get all up in my feelings, I research. I read a book about everyone who has ever died at Yosemite National Park. I dug into the author of the book and couldn't find an email address for him, but I did find his cell phone number. I shot him a text, asking for his email address so I could send him some questions I had.

He didn't respond too kindly, as it was 4AM where he was.

When we did connect later, he was unhelpful. I came to find he was simply gathering as much information as he could about my brother's death for his next edit. Although, I am not sure the type of help I was even seeking from him, so it's probably unfair to call him unhelpful. He wanted to get down to business and I just wanted someone to obsess over this type of death with.

My friend Stephen was visiting Yosemite and I had him find the place where my brother had fallen. I asked him to send me pictures of what he would have been looking at before he fell. I stopped myself short of asking him to go on the exact hike/trail and Facetime me, but I promise I was close.

Turns out, Stephen also lost a brother, which I hadn't realized. He gave me the best advice:

"Stop picturing him in death and remember how he lived."

I'm trying. I really am. Matthew knows I am trying. He visits me in my dreams at least 4 times a week. One night, as I was fighting insomnia, I screamed out loud for Matthew to leave me alone, stay out of my dreams for just this sleep,  PLEASE. He listened.

Instead, I had a dream that I frequently have: I keep finding huge and beautiful secret rooms in my house.

Matthew was an expert on dreams. When we went through his house we found bookshelves full of the study of dreaming. The week before he died, he even gave an impressive lecture about lucid dreaming. It took Kendal and I about 4 hours to get through it because we had to google most of the words, but if you're into that kind of thing you should watch.

Matthew Flowers : Lucid Dreaming

The hardest part about losing Matthew is witnessing the pain my parents feel. The 2nd hardest part is selfish. I miss the way he made me feel.