Repost – Friends Make the World a Better Place

Repost – Reevaluation of My Last Decade

February 29, 2012

Organizing 2012

March 5, 2012

Published by tamibrothers at March 2, 2012

Tags

Friends

Blog post originally posted on the Petit Fours and Hot Tamales blog October 3, 2011.

Friends Make the World a Better Place

By Tami Brothers

Duh! Everyone knows that friends make the world a better place. Problem is, too often our friends get pushed to the back burner when life gets in the way. Before too long, you’re at the very edge of “crazy” with no one to keep you from falling.

I started this year Reevaluating every aspect of my life. I honestly thought it would be easy. Clean out a bit of clutter, set a few goals, eat less junk food. I knew this journey would take some soul searching but I had no idea just how deep I’d have to dig to find what I was looking for.

When I first mentioned doing this reevaluation series on the blog, I got a lot of positive feedback and I was excited to get started. Being one of those annoying list makers, I immediately outlined 10 different topics I could feasibly accomplish in one year and that I wouldn’t mind blogging about. Everything went fairly smooth for the first part of the year.

Then June came along and the section where I had to reevaluate my connection to my family made me realize just how much work this was going to be. I felt the pressure when I started looking at my career and job choices, I struggled with finding enough time to live a happy and productive life, looking for my inner peace almost kicked my butt, and the stroll through my last decade brought tears to my eyes.

But the segment on friends actually stopped me cold. My initial thought was that I have friends. How hard could it be to find a deeper connection? How hard indeed.

Me with my friend Judi

When I took a step back to look at everything I’ve done outside of my group of family members, I was surprised at how much I have NOT done. Other than the one night I saw The Help with my friend Judi, the only time I’ve actually spent with friends over the past several years is when I attend the monthly Georgia Romance Writers meetings.

The sad part here is that aside from the few times I’ve met with my critique partner, Maxine, I never see these friends except for once a month. Even then we are usually pretty rushed and only get to connect for a few minutes here and there in-between the various parts of the meeting.

How sad is this!

The good thing here is that some of these friends are much better at keeping the connection alive than I could ever be and I can’t thank them enough for allowing me to be a part of their groups (see photos below).

Still, I’ve been mulling this segment around for a few months and I’m struggling to find a way to expand those friendships beyond what I’m currently doing. This is where you all come in. I’m hoping you’ll share a few tips on how you keep your friendships alive.

Come back on Monday, October 31^st (yes, Halloween) and find out exactly what has me biting my nails in fear.