friends

Meetaversary

~ sharingmoxie ~ 3 Comments

Am I the last person to know about the “meetaversary”? My daughter was baking a cake this week and I asked what the occasion was, “It’s our meetaversary tomorrow, we’ve been friends for ** years.” My first reaction was promposals, now this? Come on. But then, my grinchy heart stopped, and thought about my own friends, and grew bigger.

My friend from elementary school that made it through bluebirds, divorce, and moves with me. Happy 35th meetaversary, Granny.

My next door neighbor that lived through middle school, loss, boys and break-ups. Happy 31st meetaversary, neighbor.

My college roommates that walked me down the garden path in ways that you can truly only get away with in college. Happy 22nd meetaversary, roomies.

The ones that have saved my sanity through my first real job, marriage, kids, and the shitsortment of life for the past 20 years. Here’s to 20 more, softball gang.

I think we spend a great deal of time trying to immortalize ourselves on social media, taking pictures of this vacation, and that amazing meal, but if you really want to see who you are? Look to your friends. They have the goods on you from every stage of your life, right? They knew you before you were whoever you present to the world now. Any friend that has stood witness as you dramatically flushed some boy’s picture down the toilet with gusto and then offered to bike to get you ice cream is the real deal. Same for the friend that showed up for the funeral, that showed up, and showed up, and showed up.

We celebrate love with anniversaries, with engagements, with weddings, and a huge amount of pomp and circumstance. The truth is, my friends have saved me, all through my life. My husband didn’t. It’s because OF my friends that I didn’t need to be “saved” but rather to just have fun and see where it went. I can’t thank all of them enough. If you stop and think about it, I bet you can’t either. Meetaversary? It’s not such a silly thing. When I think about what I truly want for my daughter? It’s to have friendships that she wants to celebrate. That is no small thing. It’s everything.

Keep sharing moxie.

Meetaversary

Squad Goals: Laundry

~ sharingmoxie ~ 1 Comment

squad-goals

Dear Taylor Swift,

I like you, but your idea of squad goals, and all of these carefully crafted pictures, make me feel like a mushroom turdball. I enjoy the concept of wanting good things for your friends, though. So, Taylor, these are my squad goals: the great, bombastic, luxurious, off the hook things I wish for my friends…. (let’s compare).

  1. I will never make you wear a bikini and jump in the air wrapped in flag towels, but I will expect you to suit up and swim. No matter what your body looks like, you’re good. Just jump in the damn pool and then we’ll have a cocktail.
  2. I wish clean laundry baskets for you. I know you work very hard and most days it seems like you are behind before you ever even get out of bed. Savor the moments when you feel like you have your shit together. (this empty laundry basket lasted 8 minutes tonight).img_0157
  3. I hope you look up from your phones, your computers, your work, and see your peeps that are outside your door waiting to spend time with you. Just close your stuff for 15 minutes and listen to them, really listen. You won’t regret it.
  4. I hope you get time to yourself that is not limited to going to the bathroom or taking a shower. Your squirrel cage needs time to unwind and you deserve to take these moments.
  5. Spending time with your friends is important. Make it happen. We may not dress up in leather mini-skirts and rock the club scene, but we have fun. You need this Miss Mini-van.
  6. Stop scheduling plans, adventures, trips, goals for everyone else. Make your own. You’re worth it.

Taylor, your bar is set pretty high. As you can see, my squad goals are pretty pedestrian. You do you, and I’ll support my squad the best way I know how. As a favor though, if you’re friends with the pixies and the fairies, please tell them to stop stealing all our socks. It’s ridiculous. Can’t we just get along? They take one and leave the other. Insane. They already have enough pony tail holders and missing scotch tape to cross the river Jordan. We just want our socks to match again.

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Thanks, T. You’re the best.

Keep sharing moxie.

The Life Support Bed…

~ sharingmoxie ~ 2 Comments

lifesupport

I have a pile of dirt where I put extra plants at the end of the gardening season. I call it the Life Support Bed. They don’t have a permanent home yet, so it’s a holding area. They’re either going to make it or they won’t, but it gives them a fighting chance to be in the ground before winter. I celebrate the ones that return. I know they’re hardy enough to make the cut, and the others? Well, sayonara. Life is tough on the prairie.

If I’m being honest, and I DO try to be honest with you, dear readers, I’ve placed a few of my relationships in the life support bed myself this year. When your life is chaos, it’s easy to neglect all but the most essential. We’re talking hard core Maslow’s hierarchy of needs essential: food, shelter. Relationships and belonging are on the 3rd level. Forget about esteem and self-actualization, ain’t nobody got time for that… I’m kidding,  you should have time for that, but it isn’t called a hierarchy for nothing. You can’t skip one level and make it to the top.

When you’re on life support, it’s your relationships that take the biggest hit, right? Here’s the thing though, the ones that matter are going to hang in there…for awhile at least. I hadn’t talked to one of my best friends in months till last night. We had deaths, cancer diagnosis, work stress, broken pipes, and the like between us. These things changed us, but we talked and talked, and the relationship is still there. Of course, we had the roots of 20 years of friendship replete with public intoxication, embarrassing dance moves, break-ups and other sordid stories shared between us. A pretty solid foundation.

New relationships? Most can’t take the hit and weather the storm, same with plants. You have your annuals and your perennials, know the difference.

“Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.” —Oprah Winfrey

Summer is coming. THANK THE SWEET HEAVENS!! You can’t leave your relationships in the life support bed forever, they will wither on the vine and die. It’s ok to test for hardiness, but everything has a breaking point. People who need people…Sing it, Babs. You need people, too. So phone a friend, water your plants, and take care of yourself.

 

Keep sharing moxie! And, guess what?  I write this for fun. I’ll never share your e-mail or make money off of this, so subscribe and never miss a word of my delightful musings. It’s fun to share moxie. Just do it.

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