Friends ...

Kindergarten class in Germany

I stayed home most of today, except when I went out to get stuff for my Halloween costume. I will tell you about that tomorrow. I got a call from the new company that is supposed to hire me, they said I should be on their payroll on Monday, let's hope it happens!! I also got a couple of calls from friends that had read this blog and heard about my job problems and that I was a little down. One girl asked if I had many friends that I could hang out with while I wasn't working. I told her that everyone I knew had a job and had to work during the day. That girl pointed out that she was between jobs and had time, but today she was on her way to see a friend. It made me start to think about friends and what did that really mean and as we get older do we get less friends, well that doesn't make sense. I think the relationship with friends starts to change. As we have children we want to be with friends that have children. As they grow up we have more time to spend with people other than children. How many friends do you have? Is a friend someone you go over to visit? Is a friend someone you can call if your car breaks at the side of the road? Is a friend you see often? Is a friend someone you call when you are feeling "down"? I don't know the answer to those questions. I have different kinds of friends, and I think everyone is my friend, no matter age or anything else. I have many friends, yet I have few friends. It all depends on your definition of friends. I don't really know why I am writing this, except maybe if I write about it I can figure it out. But, the more I write the more confused I am. When we were kids it was so much easier, a friend is someone that allowed you to copy the answers for homework or a test!!

Sometimes I think that a friend is someone that would attend your funeral. Think of all the books, movies, and plays that have the scene where someone is believed to be dead and the person attends or observes their own funeral. I have literally thousands of students that would mourn my death. Some I have not seen for many many years, and some I had in class last week. I wonder if those ex-students are present friends. All the people I have known through the years that I don't keep in touch with any more. The school secretaries I saw every morning, my receptionists that helped me with work over the years, the recruiters that I assist and assist me in my present job. All of them I know I can depend on when I need help, and can depend on me when they need help, in work or their personal life. I guess they are friends, just not close friends. My college friends are probably closer to me than my high school friends which I have just started to get in contact with recently. They would mourn me, and I consider them my friends too. WOW, as I think of it I have tons of friends that all I have to do is reach out to and they would help me. I am glad I am writing this, I realize the hundreds of friends I have. From the guy next door that I say hello to every morning, but don't talk to otherwise, to my college friend that I talk to on the phone once or twice a year and even my old receptionist/secretary that lives far away, but keeps in contact either when she needs a letter of recommendation or just wants to say hi and tell me she is thinking about me. One of the people that called me yesterday was an old girlfriend that I feel really bad about breaking her heart because I would have eventually broken up with her and would rather hurt her a little rather than a lot. Well, this is getting a lot longer than I had though it would. I wrote this over two days because I didn't think I did it justice the first day. Writing it made me feel better about my life and I hope anyone that reads it will realize how many friends they have and find the time to thank them and let them know they are important to them. There is a girl on the internet that I talk to, when she is on line and I am too, that talks about being important to others is a big deal to her. I realized that she is important to me because she is always there when I need to reach out and talk to someone and I told her that. It made her happy to hear it, even though she will never meet me (she works very close to where I live) and it made me happy to make her happy. Everyone should make a list of who would attend their funeral then realize how important they are to other people and then act that way.

Oh, in this picture can you tell which is me? And no, I don't know who the other kids are and we didn't keep in touch. It is my Kindergarten class when I was a kid in Germany.