There is only one person in the world who will understand the significance of this picture so I’ll have to tell the story behind it to authenticate. Here’s a hint – it’s about this shirt that I stumbled upon in my closet the other day and I had to snap a quick picture of it to show him.

So, ten years ago I was working for an internet start up company, in this little Hamlet of a town with a population of about 2800. An average summer workday would consist of a morning walk with my work buddies to the local gourmet coffee shop for a freshly brewed Papua New Guinea or Costa Rican to start the day. We would linger there and discuss last night’s Seinfeld episode. We’d return to our desks and somebody would always be playing a Dave Matthews CD really loud – usually it was the CEO who dressed in shorts and walked around the office barefoot all the time. Pugsley would come to work with me and hang out in my cubicle lying at my feet snoring, sometimes he would sit on my lap while I worked, and sometimes he would lay on the sofa in the front office. Sometimes I would write notes to a coworker who sat down the hall. I would roll the note up and tuck it into the double curl of Pugsley’s tail, tell him where to go and he’d deliver the note for me. Then my coworker would write a response, stick it in his tail and Pugsley would trot back to me like a little messenger boy. It was the best of times.

Around 11:00 some of us would go into the parking lot and shoot hoops against the beautiful scenic backdrop of the Northwestern CT. hillside. Sometimes we would have sponge fights, using packing materials from the warehouse to sneak attack from the other side of our cubicles. Email and AIM was brand spanking new and even though we sat inches away from each other, we were constantly chatting online throughout the day.

Lunchtime was another walk across the street to a local diner for a California burger with fries cooked well done and a swamp water at 12:30. Back to work ‘til 3:00 then a short walk down the road to STOSH'S ICE CREAM parlour for a large waffle cone or frozen yogurt. By 4:00pm we were drinking beer at our desks, but only when the CEO was buying.

It was the best job I’ve ever had. It was a time that can never be replicated and one I feel very fortunate to have experienced. We had way too much fun but we also worked really hard and were highly productive in that environment. Hmmm. Eventually we got VC funding and took the company public, which created a lot of change and not nearly as much fun. We all had a stake in the company in the form of stock options which we were convinced would make us all very wealthy. Well, that didn’t happen, at least not for me. I got just about enough to pay off my credit card debt and buy a new car. So life doesn’t always work out the way you wanted it to, and I didn’t get rich.

But what I did get was a life experience that I wouldn’t trade for all the BS and shifty corporate games that became of it. I got hands-on job experience and knowledge that I have taken with me to every job I’ve had since. Cool. But I’ve saved the best for last. It was the friendships I made there that enriched my life. Some of them will be friends for life, others not. There are those who I no longer talk to and those I wish I still talked to. There are those who we let months or years go by without seeing or talking but we can still fall back into friendship like it was yesterday. Everytime. They know who they are.

I am a bad friend.

I’m terrible at keeping in touch and I’m not writing this to offer any excuses, just calling myself out. I let months and even years go by and it’s not that I don’t think of them, it’s not that I don’t care. Life has a way of getting away from us. People go through major life changes, have babies, have relationships, end relationships, people die and get sick. The bottom line is there were people I used to work with who would give you the shirts off their back. And did.

One of my very favorites was a 17 year old boy who was interning from a local prep school. We sat next to each other and for some reason clicked and struck up a friendship right away. Imagine me in my 20's and a teenage prep-schooler running about town. We ruled. Others would wonder what was up with the two of us hanging out all the time. Like we were having some kind of secret affair, an older woman and teenage boy. It was so NOT like that! So when people would mock us, I’d just laugh and tell him, "Yea, they’re just jealous of our youth and good looks" That always made him laugh. How I miss that laugh.

He used to wear this shirt to work, this Banana Republic shirt that for whatever reason, I became fixated on and had to have one of my own. It was a men’s size medium casual button down shirt. It also happened to be his favorite shirt at the time.

I didn’t know WHY I had to have it, but I just did. I searched all over local BR stores but to no avail, for he had purchased it in San Francisco where they sold different products. It was something in the colors, 4 different shades of green dark olive, medium olive, sage, with bluish aqua green stripes running through the plaid. I liked the way it draped and hung. The way it smelled....like sweaty 17 year old boy.

Eventually the boy went off to college and became a man. I was so sad and disenchanted when he left. Who would I eat California burgers and drink swamp waters with in the summer? Who would I go to Tori Amos concerts with? As a parting gift, guess what the boy gave me?

Yup. The Shirt. Tears were shed.

So he went off to college and I went off to uncertainty. After college, I heard he moved to NYC and I worried when 9/11 happened because I knew he worked for one of the companies whose headquarters were in the Towers. When he got in touch to let me know he was okay, I cried at his recounting of the horrific things he had experienced. Two years later I went to visit him in Hells Kitchen and then we lost touch again. And then he resurfaced by way of his own blog believe it or not :)

Who would have thought that 10 years later we’d both have blogs and be able to keep up with each other’s daily lives through them? I read his words now and am so impressed, like a proud big sister of the man he has become. A caring, thoughtful, sensitive, funny, intellectual man. We’ve become these whole other people who are so much different yet so much the same.

So, I was thumbing through my closet the other day and happened upon “the shirt”. Then it finally dawned on me why I wanted it so bad. It wasn’t just the ultimate coolness of the shirt, it was what the shirt represented, a friendship, and it reminded me of my friend when I wore it.

I still wear it today, but only with my Banana Republic, J. Crew, or Gap Khaki’s -- you know to keep it in the family. It’s probably been washed about sixty times since I took ownership, but I swear that when I bury my face deep into the soft muted green fibers and gently inhale -- it still smells like 17 year old boy.