Friends...It's the connection that counts

I went to dinner the other night with Shirley ,  one of my greatest friends ever. She is one of the Allen's from Lehi...(I Love, Love her family. People don't get much better than the Allen's!!)  We went to PF Changs...or so we thought! We are just chatting away , we walk in and are seated. Still just talking and talking (because that's what girls do best) she said "thats weird....they have spinach artichoke dip...should we get that?" Of course we should !...We ordered our drinks...and just continue to talk away. Every once in a while we would look at the menu and then get side tracked and start talking again. Eventually she said do you know what you are going to order? I start to look at the menu again ...hmmm this is weird I'm thinking...pizza ..pasta..I said "where are we?" We both turn to the front of our menus and realize we are not in Changs!!! we laughed so hard we cried! I went and told the bar tender, we were in the wrong place and to please tell the girl we were not staying. we grab our bags and got the heck out of there....I thought we were going to pee our pants we were laughing so hard. I felt like we were doing a dine and dash...except for the dine part! We walk across the parking lot and go to PF Changs, how did we not know we were in the wrong place...how did we miss the humongous, over-sized ,ginormous, mammoth  horse! I say its not because we were talking..because that comes naturally for most of us girls, but rather the fact that when you are with friends nothing else around matters. Friends are people you share your life with..the ups the downs and everything that comes in between. They don't judge you, they accept you for who you are..where you have been , and where you are going. I learned from a friend recently that we often are worried more about perfection...than connection. What good is perfection...if we never make a connection with someone? If we are always trying to put up a front so we don't let anyone really know who we are,  how would they possibly connect with us? If we don't ask questions how can we possible learn who someone is? This is what makes "real" friends one of the greatest gifts in life, they let you know who they are, where they have been and where they are headed,  and they never expect perfection from you. I have been blessed in my life to have some of the greatest friends ever. I am so grateful to have friends that when you talk , you pick up right where you left off the last time you saw them, and you never have to worry about perfection. I am grateful to have friends that are so fun to talk to and spend time with....that when you are with them you never really know what is going on around you! I love that I have been blessed with such a WONDERFUL LIFE!!!