Julie Ann Shahin's Inspiration For Generation C

Sometimes you are just in the right place at the right time...that's how Sara and I became friends. Having moved so much during my youth, and into my twenties...I was having a hard time finding friendships that stick.

My friendship with Sara began in an interesting way. David and I had just gotten engaged on Valentine's Day, 2003 and I soon thereafter purchased my wedding dress. On the afternoon that I picked up the dress one day in April, I never saw the car coming as it ran the redlight crashing into my car in the intersection. My dominant left-arm was broken. I had to find someway to continue journaling, and being that I couldn't write with my broken arm - I decided to look online, and find a way to journal typing with one hand.

What I found was the best of both worlds - an online wedding planning website with "live" journals. I introduced myself in the newbie forum, and somehow Sara and I "ran" into each other. When I opened my first journal, Sara was my first visitor that left comments. As it turned out Sara also became engaged on the very same day as I did. She was living in Massachusetts at the time, however her fiance and she were planning to return to Rochester very soon.

Besides having our engagement and wedding planning in common, I found Sara to be a dedicated friend who has one of the funniest online personalities. She delights in calling herself a geek, she embraces who she is, and I love surrounding myself with genius personalities. Our circle of friends from the message board grew to five, then seven, and it continues growing today. The group of us have seen each other through elopements, big weddings, divorce, loss of spouse through death, advanced degrees, pregnancy; we've survived road trips and blow-out fights. We contracted Sara's husband to do our house renovation, and we survived that too - coming out with flying colors in the end.

I don't see Sara as much as I'd like to now that she's studying for her doctorate in Criminal Justice in Albany yet she is only as far away as my keyboard, as we still connect through online journals and blogs. This photo was taken two days ago, as a few of us met for dinner before Sara starts a new semester. A few of us ordered Weight Watcher menu items, while Sara - with her usual sense of humor - stuck to her Seefood diet, "I see it, and I eat it."