Won't you be my friend?

Today I realize that I have some pretty amazing friends.
I'm not sure what I did to deserve them all.  Especially when anyone who knows me is well aware that I don't particularly like people.  I'm realizing that I have 3 different types of friends.  Each type is just as important as the next in helping me navigate this crazy life...

Some of my friends are the IRL (in real life) kind of friends.  They are the ones that I sit with and talk to and spend time with.   Those friends are few and far between.  Life with husbands and kids and jobs and aging parents just gets a little to complicated to maintain those IRL friends.  So the IRL friends that I have are life long friends, and we have morphed our friendship into some delicate hybrid of friendship.  We spend way more time communicating via facebook, instagram or texting.  We keep in touch.  We have the contact, but it is very different than our friendship looked even 5 years ago.  But I know without a doubt, if something earth shattering happens in my life  they will come running. I've tested this and found it to be true.  Over and over again they are there. For the big stuff.  No matter how busy life gets.

Then, oddly enough, I have a whole host of virtual friends.  These are people who for whatever reason have gravitated towards me, or I towards them thru social media.  Some of you I have known in various stages of my life, and time and distance has made contact difficult.  Some of you I have never even met in real life.  It saddens me to say this, but there are many "friends" that I know through social media that I probably wouldn't be able to pick out when I pass you in the grocery store.  These friends are the ones that keep me going when my day gets crazy and I just want to scream.  They talk me off the ledge and help me have a little perspective. They pat my hand and tell me it's going to be ok.  They cheer me on when I don't have any more fight.  They send hugs and messages of encouragement from just over the holler and from the other side of the globe.

Then there are my friends that have been brought into my life through another friend, or circumstances.  These friends amaze me the most.  They are quick to respond when I need help.  They are ready to defend me.  They are quick to talk me through the little hiccups that life brings.  They encourage me more than they could ever imagine.  And they go out of their way.  I honestly don't know what I would do without them.  These are the people who take the best part of the IRL friendship and meld it together with virtual friendship.  These are the friends that send you crazy pictures of old men wearing Bermuda shorts and knee socks because they know you will find it as odd as they do.  They are the friends that track down information that you ask about (almost absent mindedly) and report back to you ASAP.  These are the friends that will tell you the things about your kids that you take for granted.  They are also the ones who will make sure that anyone talking about you has the facts straight.

I am so glad that my life has allowed me to know so many different people.  I'm forever thankful to have encouragement from so many of you each and every day, and that all of our technology helps us to all stay a little closer together as we spin around on this big, blue marble.

Love Y'all.  Mean it.

Growing up...in fast forward & reverse

I started writing this post a year ago today...November 6, 2013.  I don't know why I never published it.  It is pretty good.  If you know me, you have witnessed a lot of the changes I've made this last year.   

I thought growing up was something that happened automatically as you got older. But it turns out it's something you have to choose to do. ~From the television show Scrubs


Growing up.  It seems as if I've been doing a lot of this lately.  I must admit that I really thought I was a grown up, but things started changing.  I started getting uncomfortable with the status quo.  I became disenchanted with people who have no depth.  I was hungry for something more, something bigger and better in my life. 

As I became uncomfortable I really started looking for answers.  I wanted to know why I was no longer content with things as they had always existed.  As I became disenchanted with the shallow in my life, I began to wade deeper and deeper into my own existence.  I began to find out and really become confident of what I believed.  I began to seek out people who had that same confidence and that had a certainty of their beliefs. 

In the process I have had to make enormous changes and adjustments.  Day to day life for me has undergone a transformation.  I liken it to weeding a garden.  (stop laughing...I hate gardening but I know how to weed one)  I have found some things in my garden that were once beautiful had become overgrown and taken over a disproportional amount of space.  Those things had to be dug up and divided.  I wish I could say that the division was easy--but it hasn't been.  Dividing some of the overgrowth has given some of the smaller more unique specimens to really thrive and grow.  In a real garden I would make every effort when dividing my plants to share.  That hasn't really been practical in life.  I am just throwing away things that no longer fit into my life.

How has it possibly taken me THIS long to write again?

I haven't posted to this blog since March of 2011.  It doesn't seem possible at all.  My life seems to be divided into 2 very distinct segments...BDD & ADD.  That would be Before Daddy Died and After Daddy Died.  (although a diagnosis of ADD wouldn't be totally out of the question either)

a little timelining may be important here...

my dad wasn't in good health for many years, but in April of 2011 things took a dramatic turn.  Things in his brain weren't working right anymore.  We made many, many, many trips to doctors and specialists and therapists.  Finally after many tests, they determined that he was not infact just a contrary old man.  Finally in July of 2011 Doctors told us he had Atypical Dementia.  I still really don't know exactly what that means.  Mainly because by the time the tests were all finished and they gave us a name for all the changes that Daddy had undergone, he was all but gone.  He went to the hospital in early August for a case of pneumonia, and after 4 days in the hospital they release him.  We expected life to pretty much settle once he got home.  It didn't.  He got worse.  He sat down in his chair that day in August after coming home from the hospital and never got up again.  We knew that was the beginning of the end.  My parents 42nd wedding anniversary was August 15, 2011.  That was the day that the hospice nurse took Daddy onto her case load.  She saved us.  She made what seemed so difficult much easier to handle.  On August 25, 2011 I went to see my Daddy like I did every day those last few months.  Earlier that day he stopped speaking.  When I left that night I told my Daddy I loved him.  That was huge for me.  Other than that day, I can't remember ever making a conscious decision to tell him that I loved him.  I somehow in my heart, I knew it was the end.  The hospice nurse wanted me to call her, so I called her as soon as I got home that night.  She told me that we needed to make plans.  I asked her for her best guess for how long we had left...she said 3 months.  I pulled myself together, and went to bed that night, and actually slept.  My phone rang at 6 that morning.  It was my mom.

 He was gone.

ADD...

In life BDD I don't remember crying.  Ever.  Life ADD was an ocean of tears...I thought that I would drown in those tears.  I didn't.  When I was awake I cried, and then when I ran out of tears I would sleep.  I had to rest so I could get up and cry again. That pattern continued for several weeks.  The first year was the hardest.  All those first.  All those times I wished I could ask my Daddy what to do.  All those times something would break at my house, or in my heart or on my car...and I just wanted to pick up the phone and have him tell me who to call or what to do or what part to buy.  The silence.  Deafening.  The only part worse than the silence was running into people who hadn't realized he died, and having them ask "how's your dad."  My tongue still hurts from all the times I wanted to reply: "he's dead.  how do you think he's doing?"  My mom would tell people "we lost Thomas."  It sounded so strange to me...like we didn't know where he was.  I knew where he was.  I also knew where he wasn't.

I used to think that once you got married and had kids of your own that you were grown up.  For me that was a big joke.  I was never grown up.  Not until ADD.

Things are easier.  I still want to go into my cave from August until after Christmas.  But this year I made myself emerge from the cave early.  I ventured out in October.

I look back thru the blog posts BDD and I kind of see that God was preparing me.  He was giving me challenges and tasks that would help me become ready for life ADD...

There have been so many precious people in our town, and my church, and just in the world in general that make me reflect and look  back at the line of demarcation that is present in my life.  It makes me want to live.  To really live & love and give life everything I have.  Sometimes I don't think I'm strong enough for that.  Sometimes I think it takes someone much more vibrant than me to live & love.  I don't want to get to the end and have regrets...and since we aren't guaranteed a tomorrow, I guess I better get to it!

************

“The ragamuffin who sees his life as a voyage of discovery and runs the risk of failure has a better feel for faithfulness than the timid man who hides behind the law and never finds out who he is at all.” 
― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out