Upside-down Life

Today I realized that life as we know it is completely upside down. When you are young (think school-age here), you have all the time in the world and all the friends you could ever want, but you lack the knowledge and experience to make the most of them. When you get older (think 40+), you have tons of experience and (hopefully) wisdom to draw from, but friends and time are incredibly hard to find.

Time can be found or made -- cut out that silly television program you watch every day just because, for example.

(Now, don't get me wrong here, I'm not advocating not watching television! I can't
imagine life without Lost or Prison Break or Desperate Housewives or HGTV or
whatever your personal viewing preferences might be. Being a human and
dealing with all the stress of life is a lot to handle -- we need our escapes! And, I
personally would much rather know that society at large is suffering from too much
television than to have society indulging in nightly drunkenness or a serious crack habit!)

My point is, that you can find or make some time in your life for what matters most to you. How does the old saying go, "You CAN have it all, you just can't have it all at once". You have to pick and choose what you spend your time on.

Friends are another story. When we're children, we are surrounded by other children and we're encouraged to play together. We have a huge pool of potential best friends to choose from and everyone-and-their-dog is encouraging us to spend time together and play together and share our favorite toys.

Not the case in adulthood. We have lives full of immediate family, children (or pets, or both), jobs, hobbies, health, homes to manage, finances to manage, automobiles to care for, personal care, etc. etc. And then add to that the extended family, the work-related stuff (whether it's ongoing professional training/education or participating in an organization, or going back to school for that advanced degree), planning and taking the family vacation (which never feels like a break from anything unless you are very lucky).

Jeeze! I've completely digressed! As an adult it is incredibly difficult to find and hold on to a great best friend. If you are very lucky, you will make friends with a select few individuals that you truly enjoy spending time with and would do anything for. If you find even one of these, even just one... hang on to her (or him) for dear life! Whatever it takes! I promise you it is worth it.

Friends are there for you when no one else is. Or when no one else is who you really want to talk to at the moment.

Yes, it's a give and take relationship. Sometimes you give and sometimes you take. And the giving and taking doesn't happen in an evenly measured back-and-forth style. Sometimes you get and get and get (cuz you're such a high maintenance chick, aren't you?) and your best friend is there for you all the while - giving and giving and giving. But then, once she's helped you get your crap together (finally... damn, I thought it would never happen), she hits a major crisis (or two or three -- hey, you don't have the market cornered on high-maintenance) and it's your turn to give -- your turn to be there with the Kleenex and chocolate, or the sage advice, or just the shoulder to cry on.

If you have one of these people in your life, treasure her. Stop right now (yes, I mean NOW) and give her a call or drop her an email and remind her (for no good reason except that I said to do it) remind her that you know she's your best friend and you know how lucky you are to have her in your life.

I promise tomorrow I will try to get photos up of the dreaded socks-in-progress! Only a knitter who has tried to knit a pair of socks can REALLY appreciate what this process is like, but for those of you who don't knit, I will try to impress upon you the neurosurgeon-like skills needed for this task by showing a photo.

Knitwit