老实说：除非你是贵宾，或者可能是祖父母，最baby showers一种吸吮。There are the mandatory feigned squeals of delight over bootie-appliquéd onesies,the cutting one-liners and hurt feelings from thoughtless relatives that inevitably arise during any large family gathering,以及以前不了解彼此的不同朋友的尴尬会面。
星期天在我朋友汉娜的婴儿送礼会上，对我来说可能比其他人更尴尬，who had to think fast to the question-of-the-day: "And how doyou认识汉娜吗？”
相信我，the honest answer would put a fast halt to any conversation.
那是十多年前的事了，那时我16岁，新入院的住院病人eating disordersward of a hospital.I was terrified of both gaining weight and of the other patients,我不必要地认为她是典型的“卑鄙女孩”，甚至因饥饿而变得更坏。当我拿着托盘走进餐厅时，it was the nightmarish "new girl" scene straight out of every teen drama worth its melodramatic salt: so quiet crickets could chirp,当我站在那里的时候，每个人都盯着我看，像个白痴一样被冻住了。The supervisor kindly pointed out a place for me,我摇摇晃晃地走过去，我的输液管明显落后于我。I sat down mutely,眼泪在我的眼睛里形成，因为我被要求吃一个完整的三明治，因为没人和我说话。我感到孤独，害怕的，and completely miserable.
That didn't last long.那天晚上，两个女孩来到我的房间，向我介绍她们自己是阿曼达和汉娜。他们带着设计师设计的洗发水和护发素的小样本，like we were in some three-star hotel and not an antiseptic hospital ward with the smells of illness and medication and leftover entrees lingering in the hallways.他们说：“我们以为你打包来这里的时候可能忘记了这些东西。”I have never been so touched by a tiny bottle of shampoo in all my life.那天晚上我去睡觉了，对第二天会带来什么就不那么害怕了。
We were a somewhat improbable group,from very different backgrounds and with different interests,but our friendship flourished from literally spending every minute of the day with each other.
我们一起吃饭，一起喝补品，we tried our best to intimidate wide-eyed social work interns in therapy together,and we had "school" together where a sweet older woman attempted and ultimately failed to inject some semblance of academic rigor for two hours a day.We spent Monday nights watching the first season of "单身汉“一起，另一个加入我们的病人说，“这场演出很成功，不会持续超过一个赛季。”最重要的是，we knitted together;编织was a popular activity in our ward because,as someone clued me in,这是医院批准的为数不多的消耗任何卡路里的消遣之一。但它也给了我们一个创造性的出口，创造一些美丽的东西，因为我们被迫坐在我们的骨屁股上。Together,Amanda,汉娜和我制作了大约60条围巾和12顶帽子。我送了很多自制的光明节那年的礼物。
我在医院交了很多好朋友，but Amanda and Hannah were my lifelines.
我们出院后，我们写信、打电话、见面几次，但是，大多数在同一时间在同一地点建立的友谊是不可能的，ours dwindled over the years.I've unfortunately lost tabs on Amanda,但是我和汉娜的通信一直在进行，in sporadic dates at Starbucks and breathless phone conversations as we ran to make the train from work.
这些年来，我看到她做了一系列艰苦的工作，为自己的公寓买单，然后上了研究生院，继续全力以赴地参与政治事业，因为她真正关心被剥夺权利的人，是的，marry her boyfriend and choose to enter the crazy and sacred institution ofmotherhood.
And I watched her on Sunday,and I had a corny moment of pride and pure joy as I thought of how far we'd both come to get to this place: me,a happy and healthy mom of two amazing kids,sitting there and nodding in recognition as she,一个快乐健康的妈妈，和她丈夫一起打开各种礼物。“什么？”is那件事？”另一个朋友疯狂地问，因为她匆匆列出了每件礼物，以通知未来的感谢信。"That's awipes warmer," I said knowingly."That's aSophie Giraffe牙环。
当我告别和收拾我的东西时，她妈妈和我聊天，简单地提到我和汉娜的青春期问题。"I'm so happy to see both of you thriving," she said.我们在那一刻转身去看汉娜，who at at this point,当她在蛋糕上切下一个毛骨悚然的娃娃的头时，她笑了，amid laughing friends and family.她的脸上洋溢着幸福的光芒，自由的手放在她盛开的肚子上。
It was a really long road to recovery,and a really long journey to get to this place,in this small backyard in Queens that was strewn with wrapping paper and presents and yes,令人毛骨悚然的娃娃，但那也是对生命本身的拥抱：它的优雅和美丽，its promise and possibilities.Because we have friends from that time who are not doing much better than they were a decade ago,我们知道这对他们来说有多困难，我们可以引用不利的统计数据。And yet against the odds,我们是:快乐,健康，and thriving.
I turned back to her mother and simply,真诚地，said,"Me,too." Me,也是。
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