I’m climbing up to the highest branch on this tree to shout out  (with a ridiculous amount of excitement) that I am heading to Orlando in a week to be an attendee at BlogHer … the largest annual celebration of women online content creators, social media influencers , entrepreneurs, media makers and brand marketers.

We’re talking panels of women like Chelsea Clinton, Laurie Hernandez (Olympic gymnast/medalist), Gabrielle Reece (former pro volleyball player, Nike’s first female spokesperson) … and other  powerful, successful, influential women in a variety of different fields.

Not to mention a room full of like-minded fellow attendees to have the opportunity to connect with and be inspired by…

Yeah, you guys… I’m pretty pumped.

When I first learned about the option to attend BlogHer, the self-doubting part of me said, “I have no business rubbing elbows with the kind of people that will be there.”  Then the financially-aware part of me stepped in and started adding up the cost of registration, flight, hotel and miscellaneous travel costs and showing me how I should use that money to help cover other things in the family budget.

But this time, I let my heart step into the conversation.

Because something inside there was telling me that I need this and I deserve this. That this is something that would be big part of pushing me deeper into my calling to use my gifts to connect people through my writing. And that I couldn’t miss it.

I haven’t listened to my heart a lot in the last year. I’ve convinced myself that I’m at a stage of life (and motherhood) that putting other people first is just where I exist, and is the RIGHT place to be.  That my time will come… and that right now, my family needs me.

Well you know what… My family does need me.

Not just the laundry-doing, appointment taxi-ing, macaroni-and-cheese-making, bed-making me.

The human me.  The person me.  The me that has passions and drive and goals for myself.

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When I was a little girl, my best friend’s and my yards were connected by a fence where a tiny opening between our lawns existed.

To the onlooker, it would look like it was made to divide our spaces.  To create separation. To define where one’s property ended and the other’s started.

To us, it’s what connected us the most.  And the term “meet me at the fence” became one that was a trademark of our childhood and our friendship.

When we weren’t allowed to go to each other’s houses, we’d meet there and make up games that we could play through the pickets.

When our moms needed an extra egg for a recipe, it’s where we would meet to make the exchange and the delivery.

It’s where dozens of whiffle and kick balls ricocheted in one of the hundreds of games we played in their yard.

It’s where we would exchange a five-second wave from each other’s porches, and choose instead to meet at the fence and have a 45-minute conversation about whatever was going on in each other’s lives.

That fence was the foundation of what our friendship was about.  We never saw the division, we saw it as a place to connect.

Today, while both of our sets of parents still live in those homes, both my friend and I have moved away into our own.  Our fence is no longer 3 feet wide, but 120 miles long.

But we still meet there.

We meet there when she sends me a mother’s day card. We meet there when we have a 60-minute phone conversation despite the attempts of one of the six kids we have between us trying to drown it out in the background.   We meet there when I am crying on a bathroom floor and just need someone to be there with me… even if she’s just listening on the phone. We meet there when we choose the other one to be our “person” when we have something we’re struggling with. We meet there when we haven’t talked for weeks, but never lay a guilt trip on the other for it. We meet there when we fight to find time in our calendar to see each other.

That 120-mile fence is long, but so is almost 35 years of friendship.  And that’s worth fighting for.

There are a lot of fences between friendships.  Sometimes life builds them and you accept that.  Sometimes we subconsciously build them on our own.

But what defines that friendship is how we look at that fence.

We either see the pickets as an impossible, impassable division.  Or we continue to fight to see the the space between and above those wooden spokes where we can still SEE and connect with each other. No matter how big the pickets and little the space.

Because I am REALLY  grateful for that space. That space is a safe one.  That space is friendship.  That  space is home.

And I will never stop fighting to focus on it.  Because life is not life without those things… Without the PEOPLE … who remind you how invaluable those things are.

(Love you, friend)