Friends

I realize that I'm a quirky person and I don't always say the right thing. It's been an interesting thing to find people I went to school with on Facebook. I didn't really have friends until High School. In fact, in both Elementary and Middle School, I had girls in my classes tell everyone else not to hang out with me. I didn't really learn how to have friends or be a friend until High School and one very good friend--who I've been friends with for 20 years now--didn't give up on me. We talk every week though we live across the country from each other.

A few years ago, when I tried to reconnect with some friends from college, the one I most wanted to know about wouldn't answer the phone or return my call. It made me cry. I just wanted to know how she was. What did I do that was so horrible that didn't merit grace? I don't know. I know I probably never will.

Sometimes I wonder. What was so wrong with me? Why did people dislike me that much to turn everyone else against me? I don't have an answer to those questions. Part of me wants to ask those people, but I don't know if they'll have an answer for me.

My daughters and I just read 100 dresses by Eleanor Estes. I was Wanda Petronski. That was me off by myself. It felt horrible. Except I didn't get to move. I stayed in the same schools for 6 years in Elementary school and then 3 in Middle School and my first year in high school was just as bad.

Not having friends for so many years changed my outlook on life a lot. 1) I'm really thankful for my friends that I have now who I know like me for me. What an amazing blessing! 2) I still wonder if there's something wrong with me that caused people to dislike me so much all those years and say such horrible things to me. 3) When people tell me that my daughters need to be in school so that they can be socialized and learn how to get along with others, I am skeptical. After all, I never did. It wasn't until I was 22 that I was really comfortable in my skin and I had attended 13 years of public school and 4 years of college by that point.

It has surprised me how many people I knew in Elementary, Middle and High School have been glad to hear from me on Facebook. We've all grown up and now have families and/or careers. It's fun to see how people have grown up. We've all matured. It has made me think about what I will tell my daughters about how things will turn out when they encounter people who don't like them and are unkind. It has also made me think about how I will teach them to treasure the friends who are really their friends and what a friend is.

Well, those are my random thoughts for now.