Kindred Spirits

by Amy Brier

Both before and after my trip to Charleston, friends and coworkers found it hard to believe that I took a trip with a bunch of people I met on the Internet. Some thought it was a risky move ("Lots of weirdos on the Internet!"), but I never doubted that I was about to embark on an adventure with a bunch of women a lot like me. And I was right. Meeting other VF'ers was like discovering a bunch of longlost sisters!

On Thursday, September 11, the first person I met was Laura Harper, who joined me on the train in North Carolina (I'd already been on the train for nine hours...). As soon as she sat down, we started gabbing about the FIRM, Cathe Friedrich and Kari Anderson, among others. We laughed as we wondered what the people sitting near us thought of our wacky conversation. We ate dinner in the dining car with a young couple on their way to Charleston to celebrate their anniversary. When they asked us why we were going to Charleston, we looked at each other, wondering how to explain this craziness to strangers. They were pretty amazed by the whole thing, to say the least!

When we checked in to the Holiday Inn (three hours late due to train problems), our roommates, Brenda Frambes and Melissa Frankfother, were waiting in the lobby for us. The four of us really hit it off, talking in the lobby for quite a while about videos and laughing about the Forum and some of the more "colorful" threads and postings.

Those first meetings pretty much set the tone for the entire weekend. Every few hours, some more VF'ers would show up by ones or twos. Everyone was quickly absorbed into the group and we all felt almost immediately like old friends. For example, on Friday night, when Sharon Minish, Jen Blaske and Tiffanee Saunders arrived, we wound up moving into a conference room (to not disturb the other residents with our conversation and laughter) and talking more about workouts and videos. Most people would have been getting tired of these topics by now, but not us!

As a final example of how much we had in common (and how truly weird we VF'ers are as a group), instead of celebrating our last night and our survival of the Masterclass with a nice dinner in a Charleston restaurant, we opted to order pizza, borrow a VCR from the hotel and watch exercise videos that we had brought along! I know that MY family thought that was pretty wacky when I told them. All in all, it was a wonderful experience meeting many of my fellow VF lunatics in person. I hated to see the weekend end and I only wish we could get together more often!

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