Subject: new friends!!
The email introducing Jodi Gruber and I to each other pinged on January 12, 2015, a week after I'd returned to the frozen tundra of Chicago. I had been spending a sunny week in Riviera Maya with 21 family members. If I'm being honest, the week was more a "trip" than "vacation," considering we had a toddler and a baby.
A few days in, I found myself waist-deep in the pool making small talk with Sasha, a chatty ginger-haired preschooler, our 2-year-old hanging on her every word. Together, we determined that her mom, Stacey, and I both grew up in the Chicago suburbs and attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Sasha introduced us to Stacey, and before I knew it, we were saving seats poolside at the crack of dawn so our new friends, the Fixlers from New York City, could hang with us.
Like her daughter, Stacey was an extroverted redhead, a Northbrook-born lawyer with expertise in Jewish geography. We bonded over our Badger past (we were members of neighboring sororities) and the funny way our careers intersected (as a freelance journalist, I'd written for nearly every national women's magazine headquartered in Manhattan... except for the one owned by the media conglomerate for which she served as associate general counsel).
Stacey also mentioned a friend and colleague who'd recently relocated from Manhattan to Chicago. Convinced we would click, she asked if she could connect us via email. I agreed.
My first "blind friend-date" with Jodi took place a few weeks later, when I showed up at her downtown Chicago condo with my husband and kids in tow. After playing with trains on their foam alphabet floor mat, we headed to the kitchen for a snack. I was so touched when Jodi brought out a cupcake and a candle to celebrate our daughter's recent third birthday, something I'd casually mentioned in a phone call a few days earlier.
It didn't hurt that we had similar-aged kiddos. In fact, her older son attended the same Jewish day school we were currently considering. We were also working mothers in the same chaotic, exhausting season of life. And her husband, Adam, was wearing a UW-Madison T-shirt; like myself, Jodi married a Badger).
We started as mom friends, our plans centering around the kids-Tot Shabbats and the Lincoln Park farmer's market-but it wasn't long before our friendship evolved into coffee shop work meet-ups, Saturday night double dates, and ladies' nights out. Over the last decade, we've made it through job transitions, nanny drama, kids' health issues, the pandemic, and b'nai mitzvah planning.
Our husbands have become great friends, too. Our families spent a long fall weekend together at JCC Camp Chi; we attempted to rough it in the cabins, but quickly fled to heated lodging after a cold, sleepless first night punctuated by groaning bunk beds and wild animal noises. We met up again in Portugal last summer for some adults-only vacationing, while our four collective kids spent seven glorious weeks at sleepaway camp.
Sometimes, when Jodi is talking me down off a ledge-a not-uncommon experience-I'll flash back to that chance poolside encounter with Stacey and feel a surge of wonder and gratitude for her matchmaking. A complete stranger is responsible for connecting me with one of my most supportive, nonjudgmental, up-for-anything girlfriends.
Our story is proof that potential friends are everywhere: the frazzled mom in line behind you at Target, the woman speaking at the JUF event you recently attended, or the neighbor three doors down whom you've never really spoken to but seems fun.
Moral of the story? Find yourself a Stacey (or her daughter, Sasha!) and let them do their thing.
Leslie Goldman is a Chicago-based journalist specializing in women's health.
