Friendship- Where art thou?

Friendship- Where art thou? 

Well, it's 4:57 am.. I have been awake for a good solid hour.. I hate it, but I also kind of love it.  In these quiet early morning hours, no one is vying for my attention. Except my kitty babies, they follow me wherever I go and MUST be near me at all times.  Its sweet really.. Anyway, nothing is required of me at this early hour from anyone.  I feel like I can just be .. Cheryl.  Someone in many ways I don't even know anymore.  Knee deep in mothering a 2 year old, potty training, meal planning, habitually cleaning, trying to keep everyone healthy and exploring the world of essential oils, organizing life, trying to learn more hymns for church, reading, bible study, prayer, attempting to be a better wife, attempting to be a better mom, attempting to be a better human, running a few different businesses, hobbies I refuse to give up because they fill a part of my soul that nothing else can.. I feel like me, Cheryl, gets lost in the shuffle and I feel even though I place a HUGE value on friendship, I always have, I find I pretty much am the worst friend of all time.  

Friendship and cultivating relationships has allllllllways been very important to me.  Some of you reading this will be people who I have known since birth and we have gone through life together, others are new friends, some cultivated online friendships that I value dearly. (more on that issue later, a lengthy rant really)  I am not going to re hash the past, but talk about the now. The place I have evolved to.  

Types of friendships I have: 

Upon moving back to my beloved home town, as a married adult with a child, I find it fascinating the friendships evolving and others falling away.  There are some fantastic people I am actually honored to have cultivated a true blue loving wonderful friendship with.  People I have known for a long long long time, and never would have dreamed we would become besties. I am tickled pink to be wrong, some of you I actually feel like I would be lost with out.  Others of you are new friends and while we may struggle a little to find the boundaries of our friendship, I can tell that we too are forging bonds that will be unbreakable.  Some of you are people I've known my entire life, we may not talk every day, we may not even talk for a month or two, but we know that when we do, its picking up where we left off.  We have done life together, sometimes we are super close, sometimes we are off doing our own thing, but our friendship has lasted our whole lives and that is something very special. Some people in my life I have known and loved for a long long time.  However, we have absolutely nothing in common anymore.  Our lives have taken us on very very different paths and while I love these people dearly, I have no idea how to be around them. I find myself awkwardly grasping at strings to find commonality between us to reestablish strength, but find it to be largely unsuccessful and it makes my heart hurt.  As a fixer, not being able to fix these friendships kill my soul a little.  I question would we be friends at all if we met for the  first time now, in our lives? Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes no. I struggle with the no's but will continue to try to make it work.  Others of you are strictly online friendships.  I KNOW this gets a lot of flack especially from anyone older than myself really.  Some of you are and probably always will be fantastic close true blue friends whom I know I can trust my soul with even though I have never met you.  I come from the generation when the internet was pretty much discovered.  Dial up connections, no google, not all information was at  your finger tips, things were primitive.  But there was a online forum chat room set up for the PNW teens in my church.  Friday nights were OUR nights.  20 separate chats open, bonding with friends from Canada, Idaho, some even cross country.  The bonds made in these caveman  like times still last to this day.  There are some of you who are VERY old online friends, some new, some I have met some I haven't and might not ever.   But quality friendships can be bonded on line. REAL friendships can happen. I am thankful for each one.  Some of you I text every single day about everything. None of you I talk to on the phone.  I would rather claw out my own eyeball and eat it than talk on the phone. I detest it to the core of my soul. 

Sadly, some people who probably are not reading this at all, are people who things could not be worked out, there are a few specific people who I will always love to my dying day, no matter how horrible things ended up, I think about them and my heart aches deeply for friendships lost to human nature.  

So where am I going with this? I want all of you to know, no matter what category you fit into, I love you guys.  You are all very special to me and I am sorry for being a miserable friend and not keeping up with how your dr appointment went, or that you sprained your ankle.  I am sorry I didnt know your pet died or your kids were sick.  I may not know or keep up with the inns and outs of each of your lives but it doesnt mean I don't care. I do care very much.  I do think about a lot of you, even in just a moment of quiet or I am out running errands and see a figurine of a polar bear, remember how you used to love and collect them and think of you.  In those quick passing moments I desperately hope that you felt the warmth of my good thoughts and love towards you.  Even if you will never know it was from  me.  I lament I am so busy in my own life trying to keep my head above water, that I let your dear friend down. 

One thing I also want to stress deeply to each of you is that no matter what you do, I love ya.  I may not always agree with you, I may in fact be thinking "um, I am pretty sure killing people is a bad idea" I might even say so even in fear you will turn on me, but friendship isnt about agreeing on everything and doing everything exactly the same..  It may be our commonalities  that bring us together, but its our differences that strengthen us and sharpen us to be better humans.  I appreciate those of you who see things differently and do things differently.  It may not work for me, or I might think its a bad idea, but who cares? Friendship shouldn't be based on each others approval of everything.  Its bout a common admiration care and concern for each others well being.  

Point: 

I am not a perfect friend by any means.  I am actually pretty dismal in my opinion.  You probably will agree, but no matter what category I may fit in your life, thank you for being my friend, old or new, strong or only friends because of our past, I think you all are very special and I do call myself blessed.  I always have your back when you need me and I may not understand you one iota, but I will support you and love you and sometimes even call you out, as I hope you will me too.  I don't judge your decisions, even if I don't understand or agree with them.  We all have to do what we have to do and thats okay.  When things work out I will rejoice with you and when things don't, I will lament with you.  

Dear friend, I love you.

Let Her Be

Let her be! 

This past week, Emily started saying something new "Let her be!" referring to herself.  It's so interesting how kids pick up random things we say.  Sometimes they use those words or phrases out of context and its adorable, other times, they use them spot on! Its incredible!  This is one of those times.  

Tait is a great father! But he is a fusser.. He fusses over Emily often and sometimes makes a sketchy situation worse.  It's at those moments when I say "let her be" I've been saying it for 2 full years now. This week, Emily decided to announce to Tait while trying to get her to wrangle her in a specific direction she obviously didn't want to go said "DAD! LET HER BE!!!"  Referring to herself and her lack of desire to be wrangled.  

Obviously we think this is hilarious.  While at church the other day, my arm was around the chair, I was brushing her hair with my fingers and she pushed my hand away and said "Let her be !" It was so serious in nature, and I can't help but turn away and laugh.  She knows what she wants or doesn't want, and while at times its VERY frustrating, others I am very proud.  

Decisiveness comes VERY easy to me, and is a trait Emily has inherited.  I can't help but feel a little bad for Tait being in a house full of very decisive girls.  Even our kitty babies are of the female gender and just as moody as the rest of us.  I told him I am pretty sure God is trying to teach him a lesson by being surrounded by so much decisive estrogen.  

I detest being fussed over, unless I am sick, at that point I want to be totally babied in every way and act moderately helpless.  I hate being fussed over otherwise.  My child is the same.  When she spouts out a "Let her be" I feel like we connect in some weird way as mother and daughter.  I know there will be MANY occasions when I do have to let her be, even if I don't want to, or know it will cause harm and she will get hurt.  Like myself, she already is demonstrating traits that she needs to learn for herself and being told Tabasco is yucky and very hot will not suffice, she needs to try it.  Yes this just happened last night. No she will not beg to play with the tobacco bottle at a restaurant ever again.  

Point: 

Since becoming a parent, my personal relationship with God has grown much.  I feel like I understand mine and His relationship a little better and am extremely humbled by it.   I know I have "let her be" moments with God, sometimes I am positive he laughs and pats me on my head (figuratively) knowing that me being me needs to taste the tabasco.  Sometimes "let her be" moments are selfish wanting to only do what ones will is and not thinking about consequence or how actions will affect others.  Sometimes they are deeply unfortunate and not appropriate for the occasion.  Others, they are exactly what is needed.  To not be swayed by the wind or wishy washy.  They can be spot on in accomplishing goals and keeping focus, not allowing others to influence, taunt, or egg on situations especially when it's been proven Tobasco is yucky and does in fact burn. I take much comfort in those moments. 

Keet it together Cheryl.. Introduction

Hi Friend,

It has been plaguing me for a long while, the need to blog again.. I have always wanted to be a blogger, and have made several attempts to do so in the past, but always get distracted, bored, or just totally forget about it all together.  Fail.

I have been fairly lonely for the past 6 years for various reasons, from isolation living in Utah to the life of a mom of a young child. I am way more a hermit than I'd like to admit.  The way I connect with people is through words.  I detest talking on the phone to the core of my soul. I find the most soothing thing is when I write a super long email to my beast friend (yes I said beast, yes it's a inside joke, and no I am not sharing) spilling my guts about this or that.  I find once I type it out, I instantly feel better about even the most deeply unfortunate of situations.  I feel like I just need to spill my guts a little more.

A close and personal friend is a an avid blogger and habitually posts.  I read as much of the blog as I can and love every word.  I feel instantly more connected and find lively conversations happen that solidify bonding.  This makes my soul feel happy and lifts my spirits.

So here I am, attempting to blog feelings that pretty much no one else will care about, but in hopes to get some feelers out of me will be healing and enable me to de-stress from life will enable health and potentially some emotional healing.

Please note, I can not spell to save my life, I don't even know what grammar is and even just spelt it grammer not grammar and had to use auto correct to fix it... So just drive on, I don't need grammatical corrections or someone to point out my lingual deformity. I am acutely aware of them and pretty much they will only be corrected as I start to home school my daughter and start at the beginning.. Maybe I'll learn the difference between then and than..

In any case, I hope someone can relate to my rants, raves and whatever else I need to get off my chest good bad and probably deeply unfortunate times... I already have 20 topics I have this intense need to disclose.

Happy reading random friend...