It was late one afternoon, still dreary and cold. The calendar said it was spring, but it didn’t feel like it yet. The grey clouds of depression seemed to hang over our heads, indefinitely. Most of our long time friends that we had through the years had moved away and found other places to carry on life.

Sean was sitting in his chair, and I was stretched out on the sofa with pillows propping up my upper body. We were in the same room, not speaking to each other. It’s not like we were mad at each other and not speaking, it’s just we were so down and depressed there was nothing to talk about. Mindlessly we both scrolled through Facebook and trolled the internet.

I posted on Facebook that night, that we would like to go out for drinks and appetizers and asked if anyone wanted to join us . Hours went by with no takers. Sean and I began to pathetically make comments on our own posts. Making fun of ourselves and how lame our social life was.

Finally, Tim took pity on us and invited us over to his house. He and I had gone to the same high school, but didn’t know each other. We had only recently connected on Facebook because our sons had both joined the Coast Guard and were actually at bootcamp at the same time. We had Facebook chatted about our sons’ situations a couple of times, and had several mutual friends from high school. He invited us over to watch hockey with him at his house. I had told him in a private message, to not ask if he didn’t mean it, that we really were that desperate for friends. It’s funny that I tell people here on Tybee this story and they think I’m joking. Here’s the screenshots from those pitiful Facebook posts.

But… We did go to Tim’s that night. And met his adorable wife, Trisha. We had lots to talk about and several things in common. They are wonderful people and we are still friends with them today. They even brought their family to Tybee a year later after we moved, we did their portraits on the beach and took them to some favorite hangouts.

It was only a couple months after that night of watching hockey, that the planets aligned and we started our plan to move four states away. Had we connected with them earlier, that might have delayed our move!

Thank God life is so different for us now. We are thankful for the many friendships we have, both near and far. I believe our prayers were heard and answered, as we specifically desired to live somewhere warm and fun with a community to belong to.