Why is it that certain people have an impact on your life far greater than how well you really knew them or how much time you spent with them? There can be people that you spend time with a only dozen times or less that change you and influence your life view. I was a very serious child. I was very serious about causes and issues and injustices and for much of my life, I was bogged down in these great and serious things. Then a friend of a friend came into my life who moderated that a little. She might say "Oh don't take yourself so seriously" or some earlier equivalent of 'whatever'. It is not that she wasn't a good and kind and compassionate person. Oh, she was all of that. She just knew that you could do what you could to and beyond that, worrying and fretting about it did you no good. That is was okay to have fun and enjoy your life even if you knew there were bad things out there, even if bad things might have happened to you. That it didn't mean you cared less about others and the environment and all that just because you let yourself have fun. When I remember back about the all too few times we spent together, what I remember most is a little way she had of flicking her hair back over her shoulder and looking at you a little bit sideways, maybe from a lifetime of trying to make sure her cigarette smoke didn't bother you, and laughing. A low throaty laugh that you could not ignore, made you have to smile, that made you feel BETTER for a long time after and again and again.
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