This online world is strange. You meet people, you become friends with some of them and then the day comes where you realize that these are your people. That the names on a screen, the words on blog posts, the 140 character tweets have become real people to you.

The people who live in California, Oregon, Florida, Wisconsin, Washington State, Texas, Washington DC, New York, New Jersey…I could continue. These are your people. The women you count on. The women who listen, who make you feel heard. They support you. No matter what you tell them. They still support you, because somewhere in them, they understand; the emotion, if not the words. They make you laugh. They let you cry. Sometimes they make you cry. They accept you as you. Your people.

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We sit at lunch at a small sidewalk table. The city that never sleeps carries on around us. One on one, during a weekend filled with people. Honest. Real. Raw. It’s the moment that sticks in my head most from that weekend.

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I watch my cell phone. I wait for a text. This happens to me sometimes. When someone is hurting, I wait for texts like farmers wait for rain. It’s a need. Nothing is okay in that moment, until my phone chirps.

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I realize I’m cupping my hand. Have been doing it for over twenty minutes. It’s my attempt to hold her hand. 1300 miles away. I hope she feels it in some small way. Me here, holding onto her.

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Curled up in bed, two people in the bed next to me. We talk and laugh for over an hour after we all should have been asleep. Maybe two hours. Even though we feel like we are still on west coast time, our bodies aren’t used to this hour. The conversation is always worth the lack of sleep.

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I call her for the first time. Her voice sounds just how I thought it would. Because I know her. I’ve known her for months. We pick up our conversation like we’d been talking forever.

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I waited for her to get off the plane. We’d texted each other the night before, okay, I’m scared. It was almost funny, because how can you be nervous to meet someone who you talk to every single day? The second she got off the plane, I knew, this is all okay.

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Not a day has gone by. Not a day. In a year at least. Without at least one text or email or DM.

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I look at my desk calendar and smile. They both have one too. I purchased them at Christmas. Silly little desk calendar. I’ve never loved one more in my entire life.

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There was a day that I thought I’d just lay down and cease to exist. One of the harder days of this year. Doorbell. Flowers. For me. Just because. I still have the card. To brighten my day it said.

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I cry into the phone. Late at night. I cry into the phone to her. She lets me. Always. No matter what. She sits there and lets me cry in her ear until I’m done. Then? She changes the subject. Asks a question. Tells me about something silly her kids did. Tells me about her dessert. Something. Anything. Because she knows me. She knows I need that, almost as much as I needed to cry.

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An Italian restaurant. I was on vacation with my kids, but I made a point to take time to go meet her. Two hours of non stop talking. I felt like I’d known her forever. Even though it can go weeks between a tweet, I still consider her one of my people. It’s easy to pick up right where we left off, no matter how long it goes.

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One of us starts an email each morning. Generally just during the week. Four names. It pings back and forth all day. California. Colorado. Florida. Oregon.

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You realize that as hard as it can be to have none of them live near you, it’s still worth it every day, to have them in your life. No one said your people had to live on the same street as you. There doesn’t need to be a definition for it. It just is.

These are my people. This is why I do this. Because of my people.