Today I ventured 75 miles south of San Francisco to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk to meet up with a journalist friend of mine, whom I met a couple of years ago in Hawaii. I also saw her when I went to NYC last year. The interesting part of the story is that I almost decided not to go. It's a long way to drive to the busiest place on a summer Sunday. Usually I make Mark go with me and he drives and takes half of my stress away. But I decided to go on my own, gaining some of my independence back. As I recall, I was quite an intrepid traveler to much more exotic places than Santa Cruz. I also thought it was super important to make the effort for my friend. We don't know each other all that well, but enough to email regularly and meet up if we're ever near each other. But besides that, it was really important just to take steps toward making connections with people in general. I can't be a co-dependent hermit my whole life.—SF
I am glad you are making big efforts to maintain friendships. I think the Missus thinks I have a crush on one of her friends. But the reason I would go out of my way for this particular friend of her's was because she drove 4 hours to meet her when we passed through Tokyo a few years back! Many of her other friends were too "busy" to take a few hours out of their day to meet her for dinner in her home town. Good on ya' for going the . . . ha ha . . . quite literally, the extra mile. And I like the pic too. We considered Coney Island for the 4th but, yeah, too many people!!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I saw another friend tonight. We had a good talk about life. In many ways, we're in the same boat--almost 40, unmarried, waiting for the right guy, making a well-worn groove in our life. I was emotional when I went to see her because Rachel, my neighbor, called today to say she and her fiance are moving to New York because he got a job. I was jealous and sad. I'm not moving forward. So much positivity has happened in her life just in the time M and I have been trying to break up. I guess me making an effort to expand my social circle is a way of trying to unstick myself.
Delete