Jaxon has a babysitter right now so I’m going to take this opportunity to get a little deep and meaningful here.

Ten years ago a cousin of mine met and fell in love with someone on the Internet. She’d never met him, since he lived in Texas. When I found out about the relationship, she had already been to America to meet him and brought him back to live with her and get married. They’ve been together ever since and have four very beautiful children.

At the time I had very little knowledge of the Internet. I thought it was CRAZY. To fall in love with someone you’d never met. To fall in love with and trust someone and not really know that what they said they were, was actually the truth.

I’ve had some time to think about it. Now that I am thoroughly in to this Internet thing, I totally get it. I could easily fall in love with someone over the Internet. This is not to say that I am looking and lurking through dating websites…going behind Tim’s back looking for love. That is not what I am talking about. I am simply saying that I can see now how it could happen, and I understand.

I know this now because the majority of my best friends are Internet friends. When Jaxon was four months old and started crying for no known reason I felt very alone. While at mother’s group the other girls seemed to be getting along OK, complaining about the occasional cry, I was drowning. I was constantly searching their faces for a speck of truth that they were drowning right along with me. But I never found it. And because they all looked to be getting along just fine with this baby thing, I didn’t have the ball’s to stand up, put my hand in the air and say “I’m a new mother, and I need help”

Here in Internet land was a completely different story. Not because the mother’s with new born babies Jaxon’s age were going through exactly what I was going through, because they weren’t. But because here in Internet land it’s very easy to open up and be honest. If I needed to cry I did it, right here in the safety of my own home.

“My girls” as I affectionately call them, listened to me and heard me cry. They opened up and shared as much of their experience as they could to try and help me through.

I couldn’t find the words I needed to say face to face to the friends visiting. I didn’t want to cry and break down and seem weak in front of them either. I suffered in silence. They knew what was going on, because when they came Jaxon was crying. While they visited Jaxon was crying, and when they left, Jaxon was still crying.

Three weeks later Jaxon and I ended up in hospital. While my Internet friends were not so surprised to hear it happened, my close friends didn’t see it coming. Because I just didn’t want to admit to them that something was wrong. Most of them knew the crying was going on, but didn’t understand that it was all day and all night with barely any breaks in between.

One day in hospital Tim came to me with a package, which he called “Boo’s Fan Mail” It was letters and cards from all over the world. My girls were reaching out to me when I didn’t even have the Internet. While I didn’t get a single call from friends of mine, I received calls from South Africa and America, from my girls, offering support.

We share everything. The things we have opened up about are unbelievable. From the color and consistency of poo that comes out of our babies bum’s, to the best sexual position you’ve ever tried and your favorite family recipes. Right down to the way we all wipe our asses. I scrunch in public and fold at home, since I hear you all begging to know!

It’s all out there. It’s all honest and it’s all read and heard without judgment or scorn, mostly. We’ve been through thick and thin together. Through the ups and downs of pregnancy, the up
s and downs of birth and the new born months. We’ve shared marriages and divorces, school graduations and birthdays. Sadly, we’ve lived together through the deaths of two of our babies, and most recently two family deaths.

I love my girls just as much as the people I see here in my home town. I trust them as much as I trust the people I know here in my home town. I couldn’t live without them and they are as “real” to me as the people that I have over for dinner and meet with down the street.

It is these girls, sharing their lives with me, that make me understand how people can fall in love with people they have never met. Through the good and the bad they have held my hand and given me a shoulder to cry on. One day I hope we meet over coffee.

So I guess you could say that I am in love. With 100 or so woman from all over the world. I TOTALLY get it.