for when you need an umbrella

This entry isn't about fashion. It's not about celebrities or models or actors or comedians. It's not about technology or popular culture or even about the recent questions about whether Dan and Serena ever really took their love life off the small screen. Over the past few weeks I've been in home owner hell. Several months ago Comed or the City (depends who you ask and how quickly they shift blame) came to fix/edit/manipulate an electrical pole directly next to my apt. Rather than filling the hole they'd dug, they simply backfilled it with the rocks they'd pulled out. At the time, I thought well that stinks, I was hoping they'd add a bit more security to my somewhat dated alley but left it at that. Chicago has seen it's share of rain this summer. All consuming, overwhelming rain storms that seem to come from nowhere and douse anything in its path. I kept thinking how lucky I was; here I am with my second floor space being below ground and I'd never had a problem. And then the gods laughed. I moved a large box in my downstairs closet and thought, that's so weird... why is this wet? And for the next several days every time it rained, there was more... more flooding, more panic attacks, more towels to clean. Outside the backfilled hole had quickly become a sink hole, allowing direct access to the sides of my foundation and clearly a way in through the bottom half of my walls. A week later I was still fighting with the city, with Comed, with insurance companies, trying to figure out what I needed to do. And the problem isn't even quite fixed. Thankfully Comed did come out to fill the hole with cement (fingers crossed this holds and stops any more damage... no seriously, cross everything you have!) and my downstairs is tentatively dry with a water remediation expert coming out tomorrow to take a look and hopefully let me know I dodged a bullet.

This post, however isn't really about any of that. It's about the people in your life who carry you through. I've had more than a few stumbles in my life and it always amazes me the consistency of those important people, sometimes even those you never expected to be there to pick you up. In my last apt when I woke up on Christmas Eve morning more than a little bit still drunk to the sound of rain, I thought how pleasant. 2 minutes later when I realized that rain was actually a burst pipe from the apt above running down my walls, I thought something far less pleasant. On cue, my friend Hilary showed up in gollashes up to her waist and a bucket. For the rest of the week, my friend Katie let me share her bed while my walls were rebuilt. There are countless times throughout the past several years I could name any one of you for being the one thing that held me together. This time around the duties fell to Nathan and my parents. Both put up with daily calls and a rather downtrodden Hunter moping about. You propped me up and got me through each day, when (maybe a bit melodramatically... sure sure, maybe a bit) I didn't think I could deal with anything else. Neither complained once. When I began to worry that the hole hadn't fixed the problem and that I'd be away the first time it rained, more than a handful of people volunteered to come over and check for me.

You call them your rocks, your sounding boards and your best friends. You call them siblings and co-workers, roommates and relatives. They are those select few people in your life. The people you may see regularly or those you don't see nearly enough who you know will always be there. This post is a general thank you. While it will never be enough, it's the most public way I could think to let you know how much I care. It's a call to action to each of you (or ya know, maybe just the few twitter followers I have) to thank people. It's sometimes simple things, like saving you the last slice, or helping you paint a room or the big things like holding your hand and propping your up but they're the things that matter most.

It's funny how as time goes on and I meet new and exciting people I begin to understand the qualities that matter most in a friendship. I understand that having parents who are some of your closest friends is a rarity and how having the luxury of multiple ICE contacts makes me luckier then I could've possibly imagined. I have coworkers who offer advice when I come in upset and friends who take keys to be there just in case. I have people I've met very recently who live in other cities who I already know will be at the play dates I someday make for my imaginary kids. There's a quality in these people that just makes you feel safer.

We're a world of individuals who are brought together sometimes by seemingly random acts of fate. We build families and carry memories with us when we move somewhere new. We're bands of brothers who find in others the ability to get through. Soo, it may seem silly, or generic or uninspired but it's life and for those of you who help me to live it, I say thank you. Thank you for always being there and for being the basic black that gives me the confidence to just be.