Day 26: I am thankful for friends.

It seems as we get older, the more appreciative of the friends we have. Maybe because as we get older, we hold tighter to the friends we do have.  I have never been one to have thousands of thousands of friends, but the ones I have, are incredible. Believe me they are amazing people.

I think we all will admit lives become crazy. Family, work, day to day things mean we do not get to spend as much time with the ones we love.

I know I am just as bad at catching up, staying in touch and reaching out to those that I hold close. We always assume the other is just to busy, or we put things off until tomorrow. And then the next day.I keep promising myself I will improve on this. 

We have been through a lot. All of us have, together we push each other to make the be the best people we can be. Its not always easy, but we hang in there. We are who we are because of people like friends. I fully believe that.

So I wanted to say thank you to all my friends, I have been so blessed to have each and every one of you in my life. Whether you live around the corner, an hour or way or across the country. I am so incredibly thankful for the friendships we have made. I know I do not say it enough, I know I do not see you enough but know that you are and always will be a part of my life. I have learned a lot about myself from you guys.

So if you are reading this, thank you. Thank you for picking me up when I needed it, kicking me in the butt when I needed it and just being there to laugh, cry and support me through everything. Even if I do sound totally crazy in my ideas and believe I am all alone in my line of thinking.

I love you all. And am so very thankful to have you guys as my extended family.

You've got a friend in me.

When it comes to friends, I admit I could probably count the number I have on one hand. Sure we have the couples friends. Those people we get together with from time to time. His and Her friends sort of thing that are now ours...But actually solo friends? Just her friends?

Maybe less.

Its not that they aren't important to me, or that I don't try to make friends...

Its just well... not as easy...

It used to not be like this. No, I used to have a lot more.  It was easier then to get together. Before kids, and husbands and jobs and life got in the way I suppose. Back when having a lot of friends was the most important thing ever and you could just call up so and so, see if they wanted to see the latest movie, or go shopping for things you really didn't need. And of course they would always say yes because, well they didn't have a life back then easier.There was no curfew or bedtime you needed to worry about. No babysitter to pay and the mall really was the coolest place to be.

 Maybe I didn't have the quantity of friends my sisters had, but I didn't do shabby either. And yes it was a whole lot easier to maintain the small number of friends I did have. 

Ah those were the days.

I never thought I would miss them. The days when getting together were simple. Or friends. Just having friends. But this weekend, I had dinner with a friend I had lost contact with, and am just now getting back really in touch with, I realized how much I had. And how much I not needed them.

It was not that we did anything special, because we didn't. But we sat there and talked. There was the usual job talk, kid updates and walk down memory lane. What get together wouldn't? But then there was something else that I hadn't done with anyone. Guy gab. Husband bashing-yes, honey there was.-and just all around gossip.

I talked a lot. Unusual for me since I am a whole lot better in written communication than verbal. But I let things out, and let things go some of which I hadn't admitted to anyone. For a brief moment I felt guilty about this, after all she didn't come here to listen to my issues. And who was I to be talking to her about it anyway. But afterwards I sat there across the way feeling as though this huge stress was lifted. As though I had been holding something back and inside for so long and letting it out was the key to releasing it.

I realize you can't do this with every friend. But it felt good at the time to do so.

With this one.

True maybe we still didn't see the latest blockbuster. And I ended up heading to the mall on my own for things I actually needed. But I left feeling as though the dinner meant so much more than it did back when things like going to mall was the coolest thing ever. And maybe I still don't have an enormous amount of friends, though my Facebook would probably say otherwise.And maybe I don't get together as often as I should, though we did vow to do it a lot more often.

But maybe that isn't what is important after all.

Friday Five-11/4: Hanging out

Here's to another Friday...

This week's theme: Hanging out.

1. Where did you hang out with your friends when you were a teen?

My best friend lived just a couple houses down the way from me growing up. So for the most part we spent a good portion of our time together hanging out at each others home. Usually up in rooms listening to music and just chilling. Occasionally homework would get done. But I am pretty sure there was more yapping going on than anything. When she finally got her license we would hang out at the mall down the road from us. I think the owner of Sam Goody.(does anyone even remember that store anymore??) got to know us pretty well back in the day.

2. Where did you hang out with your friends when you were in your twenties?

In my early twenties, I was still living with my parents, and that friend still lived down the way so once again we were still hanging out. The mall seemed to be a fabulous place back then because we continued to go there, despite the fact it was actually kind of a crappy mall. By the time I was in my mid twenties, and dating my husband the friends house became more of social events, and we moved to the local billiards where his friends-and sort of my friends now?-played on a local pool league. As I entered my late twenties-which wasn't so long ago, my hang out became Caps hockey games.  

3. Where do you hang out with your friends now.

It seems now that I am in my early thirties, hanging out with friends, gets to be few and far between. Life gets in the way, friends move. You start a family. But every now and then we still try to find time. Usually its still at a good old Caps hockey game, and its with my mom, who I consider a friend anyway. And that mall, doesn't seem as appealing anymore. Now if we do get together its at one another's house, or out for dinner...as long as we can find a babysitter.

4. What great hangout memories do you have?

Every great friendship has one. A story, a memory.

• taking a class at the local community college. It was for History, mid semester the teacher puts on this song to explain the decades. 'We Didn't Start the Fire' by Billy Joel. I know every word, and so happened did the girl beside me. It was the song that bonded us as friends.
• In high school, the best friend from down the street and I decided to play in muddy rain puddles on afternoon. We looked like fools but had a blast doing so. I think thats all that matters.
• After hockey games, we would go to IHOP and have a late dinner. I wrote a piece of poetry on the whim one night while we were waiting for my husband. Later I had to turn it in for a English class, and it won the college's poetry contest. All because we were goofing off and I just wrote. It took me 2 minutes
• As I mentioned, Sam Goody's got to know us pretty well back then. The bestie and I were regulars. The year I turned 19, BSB's Millennium came out two days before. And there was this whole display...we hung out long enough for the owner to give me the display as a present. I'm pretty sure I didn't think life could get better at that moment.

5. What ingredient makes hanging out better sometimes than others. 

I don' t think there is just one, and most of the times, the best times are when nothing really happens at all. Or are unplanned. But having friends there, food, the bond between the friends and the memories always seem to make for an incredible time.

Question from Friday5.org

I will remember you.

Just about eleven years ago I worked at this tiny thrift store around the corner from my house.

I pretty much hated it.

I hated the weird creepy guys that came in just to stare at me, they would stand behind the racks of clothing pretending to browse all the while their eyes would burn holes through me. I hated the way it smelt, of old clothes and stale cigarettes. Sometimes of death. And lets not mention the guy, an officer in the military-though which one I can't recall- who always flirted with me, he would often come in with his wife to begin with, then slowly just by himself. Using his kids as an excuse then he would not so shameful make passes at me. I babysat for them a few times, and his daughter point blank told me her mommy hated me because her daddy wanted me. Whatever that meant. They would get in these huge fights about me. But she agreed with daddy, she wanted me to be her mommy. That whole situation always brought an odd weird feeling to me.

I didn't babysit them anymore after that. Last I heard he was shipped off to Afghanistan shortly after 9/11...I always wonder what happened to him.

Yes, working there wasn't the thrill in my life. But what I did love was Sherri....Sherri who was just your all around lovely lady. Old enough to be my mom she took me under her wing. We worked together in that little shop around the corner for over a year. In that time she grew to be like a mother to me. I would often tell her things that I was scared to even admit to my own parents, and she would tell me about her family. And her son, the oldest one who always came to visit. Oh what I crush I developed on that boy. We laughed about the officer from time to time, and she was the first person to make his little 'love' for me known. Oh what laughs we had. What good times we had.  There was never a moment she was telling me I was ugly, or that my disability was an issue. She was just there for me. She made the six hours a day I worked there worth while. And when she wasn't working with me, I found my day not to be the same.

And then came the day when she told me she was moving. And not just to around the way, but rather to WV. To start a new life with her and the family. Her sons needed a change. The crush worthy boy was in a little trouble-whats that saying about falling for the bad boys?-and so it would be good for them.

My heart broke.

And in less than two weeks I said goodbye to my friend who I loved dearly. Her last words of advice were to watch out for Mr. Officer....because he told her 'if he could, he would leave his wife for me. And he wanted to have an affair with me.'

We laughed all the way out to the parking lot, she then gave me a ride home gave me a hug and drove off.

This would be the last time I would see her.

We kept in touch for awhile. Wrote and called often. But as the years flew by it became less and less. I sent her an invitation to the wedding and was bummed to get a response of no back.  Since then there hadn't been much contact. A few things here and there. Emails. But even those had stopped.

By now it was more of a passing thought I would give her every now and then. Though I always wondered and never stopped caring.

Until two days ago, when a message from her husband popped up on Facebook. Weird..her husband. Her husband, who I had met just a handful of times asks for me to call him. Oh No! Please, tell me...no I knew right then and there what it was about. Or at least I had my suspisions. And so I waited a whole day before making that call, which confirmed my fear.

Sherri had passed, of pneumonia .

And for the second time in regards to her. My heart broke.

My world, just grew a little darker.

You've got a friend in me.

This past Memorial Day I watched as one of my best friends got married. It was quite the drama filled day. While I won't go into every single detail, I will say the bride's sister/matron of honor dropped out because the night before she had an epiphany of some sorts and told the bride she should not marry the groom. What played out in that next 24 hours would tear the family in to two. Fights between sisters, between daughters and their father and the soon to be father in law and the groom. It seemed as though no one was remembering what the weekend was about, or whom.

There was, as typically is in most weddings plenty of tears. Though the guests had not one clue it was more for the loss of a sister, a friend rather than the fact the bride was getting married. In the end, the bride's sister backed out of the wedding, vowing that until the bride ends the relationship with the groom, and until they move out of their parents house, until these things happen their relationship was dead.

Through it all, I stood along with the two other bridesmaids beside the bride. We picked up where the Matron left off. In that instance we all became the family she had just lost. At the moment, in the final moments of the bridal room, I felt this extreme amount of sorrow for her. For her family. For everything and everyone involved. And even if I had been married for five years, I knew there was no amount of advice that I could really truly give her that would make anything better.

So I did the only thing I could think of, along with my husband who was a groomsman, we vowed that we would be there for her. For them.Whether it was that day, or three years from now. Because as friends, as family that's what we do.

It's been two weeks since that frightful hot May day, and in those two weeks my husband and I are beginning to wonder if making that vow was the right decision. In the two weeks we have become mediators between bride and groom, someone to vent to via text, email and lengthy phone conversations. We invited the groom over this past weekend while the bride took up a babysitting job. But we weren't expecting that we would end up taking him out and paying for his meal, since he is unemployed at the moment. We truly didn't mind this, after all it was our suggestion to take him to dinner with us. But as we talked at the table, he kept bringing up the fact that we needed to get together, hang out more often.

During the visit he asked if it would be ok if they could use our place to crash when they need to escape from his in-laws house, and asked to chauffeur them to the airport for a 6 o'clock flight on a Tuesday morning for their honeymoon, they would need to leave their car here for the week and be picked back up that following Tuesday at midnight.

Neither my husband nor I knew what to say. On one hand we didn't exactly mind hanging out with them, being there for them we were beginning to wonder how much is to much? And when does it begin to cross the line from friendship to being used completely?

And should this be the case, how does one stop it from continuing?

48 hours notice.

Two days ago, Andy informed me I have tickets to tonight's Caps vs. Canucks game. Catching me off guard I found myself scrambling for someone to go with. Of course, two days isn't a lot of notice for anyone. I should know, I am a mom. But then again, it was the weekend, and someone was bound to be able to go. Its not like it was exactly last minute.

And so my quest to find someone began.

There was a time when two days was plenty of notice. Pre-baby and pre full time work. Back then, all my husband had to do was say you want them, I would jump at the chance. There was no scrambling to find a sitter, and my friends, would be glad to dump whatever they were doing to accompany me as well. If nothing more, the tickets were free, so even if they weren't exactly into hockey. It was something to do, and free.

Believe me the word free spoke volumes with several people.

Of course this was back when there was little responsibilities on either part. The after games were spent at IHOP writing terrible poetry and talking about the game.

But sadly these days, have come and gone. Now, getting tickets means I have to arrange for someone to watch Logan, who is still a little to young to go. The friends that once jumped at the chance, have now found full time jobs themselves. And while none of my girlfriends have kids of their own, they have lives. Boyfriends, husbands, weddings to plan. Etc.

Truth be told, its no longer easy to coordinate doing anything with any one anymore. Whether its a hockey game, or just a night out. Its simply not easy to coordinate it. If I am free, they aren't. If they are free, I am not. Not to mention, that while none of them have kid(s) I do. And while I love my son, having him as a tag-a-long, wasn't exactly apart of their plans when they asked if I wanted to get together. They understand of course, and usually say nothing about it. But I still feel that guilt over it.

So when my husband offered me the tickets Wednesday night, I scrambled. My mom thankfully offered to watch Logan so mommy could have a night out. Which was lovely but didn't resolve my who to take issue. My mom, being a hockey fan herself of course was now out of the picture to go, since she was watching my son.

If only I had more time. I cursed my husband for the lack of notice. After all he has had these tickets since well before the season started. You would have thought....

Still I sat there flipping through my list of contacts yesterday in a scramble trying to find anyone to go with. I mean someone had to be able to go right? There is no way in hell that everyone was busy. Right?

Wrong. By 5 pm last night it was clear. Not one of my friends could go. Not only where they busy, but it was a three day weekend-well for most of them anyway-which meant, they were heading out of town, spending it cleaning or hanging out with their significant others.

None of which I could blame them for. Given the chance, I would do the same.

Of course they all apologized and said if they had known sooner they would have, that 48 hours was not enough time for them to figure things out, that they were already busy. And to keep them in mind for the next go around. And that we should get together some time. They leave it up to me to figure out what is the best time, since it apparent to them that I am the one with the busy schedule. And the son, and the husband who works for the NHL.

I hang up with each and everyone of them, promising I will get back to them, yet not knowing exactly when that would be. Because they are right about one thing. I am busy. I do have a son and a husband who works for the NHL. I work full time and go to school at night.

Yes I am busy.
But something tells me I am not the only one. Who after all was the one that required 48 hours notice?

A total me day.

The final weekend of September means, its the final weekend before I become a widow. The final weekend before I have to work my schedule out with a hockey schedule, which requires just a little bit more of creative planning. That being said, because of it being the last weekend my husband let me have an entire day to myself.

Sort of like a mother's day in September.

So how did I spend my not so official mothers day?

Well to begin with, getting a much needed haircut and color. I always seem to put it off way to long, for two reasons. One being I am just lazy, but the main reason is financially. Which makes me wait as long as I can before it drives me crazy and I can no longer stand it. Of course, I always leave there saying I should have done this a lot sooner. And a lot more often. Its always amazing just how much a haircut can do for one's spirits. I decided after seeing a photo of Kaite Holmes to go ahead and get it chopped off in the exact same fashion. So for the past two weeks I have been anticipating, and yes worrying a bit that it wouldn't look exactly the way I thought it was going to look. I even thought about scrapping the idea and backing out of it entirely. But as I sat there in the chair I thought what the hell, it's hair. It will grow back. I handed the picture over to my stylist, the same I have had for the past three years and waited for her to tell me it wasn't a great idea. Instead however she stood there and beamed, claiming that this would look absolutely fabulous, including the hair color. She also promised it would be easy to maintain and that I would love it.

There was however no money back guarantee.

I guess its a good thing I absolutely loved it.

Afterward I met up with one of my best friends to do a little retail therapy and dinner. Spending way more than I probably should have, on things I am not so sure I even needed. OK I take that back because I actually did need those shoes for an upcoming wedding, so maybe I did need some of it. But after a few hours and an incredible feeling I realized there are times. When its just needed and accepted. This being one of them. I mean its not often anymore that I get the time to spend with a good friend, complain about men and just enjoy the day. Don't get me wrong, I love and adore my son. I love my husband. But with a hockey schedule, a full time job, a two hour commute one way, and school, I tend to forget to take the time to enjoy friends. To enjoy life at times.

And just like my haircut, I left my friend, thinking I should do this more often. Maybe not spend so much, but get out, hang out leave my son and Andy at home for awhile.

And just be me.