I've listed a number of ideas on how to start this essay for Carlin because there's just so much to write about since I met her (virtually) in 2017.
She was in my interview loop for the CrowdTangle role. I don't remember much about the conversation anymore, but I vividly remember where I was when I got her message congratulating me after I signed the offer.
When I officially joined, she was my peer buddy, which turned out to be one of the most life-altering things to happen to me. During my onboarding trip to Menlo Park, she welcomed me and gave me a tour of the campus. We had dim sum in SF and talked about Shonda Rhimes. At work, she would always answer my questions with patience and thought.
The next thing I knew, we were best friends.
And what a great friend Carlin is. Above and beyond. The friend you want next to you when things don't make sense. The friend who gives you a safe space when you need to just lose it.
She's also the friend who will just laugh and forgive you when you put the wrong location in the map, even if you end up in a place that looks like a convenient spot for dead bodies to be dumped. And she won't judge you if you say, "we need to drive from one building to another" because you don't know how to ride a bike. And she's the friend who will take you outside the house of your favorite architect and let you act like a giddy little kid.
She's the friend who will pick you up from your cousin's house to take you to SFO, even if she's been driving all day from LA, just so you can spend an hour catching up.
I admire her as a friend, but I admire her even more for her convictions. Even before I knew her, she cared deeply and worked to help underserved communities. I can't count the number of times she told me about a Black or female-owned business or entrepreneur she'd just learned about and how she was finding ways to connect them with their communities.
There's so much more I could write about Carlin, and I've been struggling with how to end this. Then I thought, what if I just end with this:
"Winter is real. Kids are medicine. Love is eternal."
She'll get it.