Monday, May 18, 2015

Busy life or fickle friendship?

Friendship is a funny thing. For as much value as we place on it, sometimes above family relationships, friendships sometimes feel fickle. Not that the "friend" is necessarily a fickle person, but the give and take of friendship seems to be fickle, inconsistent, and out of whack with my expectations.
How often do you try to schedule a lunch or coffee after someone suggests it, and then he or she  can't make it work? Schedules and plans shift around as we go through our weeks, and those iffy plans made with a friend get pushed aside.
Someone says, "Hey, we need to get together sometime."  I never know the protocol. Am I suppose to initiate that or do I assume they will contact me to make a plan? {Sigh}
My husband is often good at remembering to follow up on these conversations. I have been frustrated many times when I've tried to set up a time to meet a friend. Sometimes I get so frustrated I quit.
No one likes to be harassed either.  No one wants to be guilted into friendship, and it doesn't work either!
Everybody has acquired friends and acquaintances from various stages of life--childhood, high school college, work, parenthood, children's schooling, or other activities.
Who will you count as friends years from now? Many of these friends we see in passing. At one time there may have been deep connections with them, but now life circumstances (we like to call it "busyness") get in the way. Some friends I am reunited with in new social situations; others I have to work at with them to get together once a year (its worth it!); and often I feel left out of others' lives that I was a part of at one time. It's a fickle thing, friendships, bedeviled by time, work and family commitments, volunteer activities, and life in general. For the unnaturally outgoing or well-spoken person, as I am, initiating is a personal challenge.
Its difficult to remember my last good phone conversation with a friend especially with so many other ways to connect with people. Now more often than not I exchange a text rather than talk on the phone or in person. Its good, but still not quite as good as having a conversation in person. And yet, I'm to blame, too, because at the end of my day I just want to curl up at home. So, is life fickle, are my friends fickle, or am I fickle? Or is it just a stage?
What must each of us give up in order to invest in friendships?

Stealing from the dead

Already raw and anxious about my dad's upcoming inurnment service, I felt like I'd been punched in the gut to hear my significant other say that he noticed some lobstering equipment missing from behind the old shed at my dad's. Stealing is wrong. Stealing from the dead is wrong. Neither is more wrong than the other.
This theft feels like another loss.It didn't help my already raw emotions and whirling stomach to settle down. Of course the stolen goods have little meaning to me, other than it didn't belong to whoever decided they wanted it.
Despite having the property on a police watch and a light on inside, the place looks abandoned. It's not a pretty property. Its run down (maybe falling down), and it seems like it won't be worth much to invest in for the estate. Regardless, it was my grandparents' before it was my dad's. They worked hard for their little home and in photos and in my memory it was a cozy little house with plenty of treats to eat and cuddles from my grandmother.
Interestingly enough on the front page of a local paper was a report of a gravesite that was dug down to the vault and it was reported that it looked as if someone was trying to tamper with it. The family has no idea who would have done such a thing and said there were no valuables buried with the family member. What a horrible thing to have happen to you.
Most people are respectful. These stories are few and far between but make headlines. Unfortunately there is a lot of petty theft in the area, which is not respectful but selfish and brazen and sad.
I was hoping that people would respect my dad's property. So many people are aware he's died and that no one is living in the home. Why wouldn't they just respect that? They just can't. Thieves are not neighborly or caring about others.
The property will never be recovered, and maybe it was sold or scrapped for cash, I don't know, but I do know that I wish for people to become neighborly again and watch out for each other rather than trying to take what they can get. 

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