The Things that Divide

No quote. I'm too lazy to look one up.

I spent most of today reading and relaxing. Tomorrow, I have to get into the school work grind, so today was my "last day of freedom." I should have been cleaning, but I stayed up too late last night, and it threw my whole schedule off.

The news says the British authorities think they've caught one of the people responsible for the recent failed bomb attempts. I hope so. It would be refreshing for a person to be caught for this. I don't mean that as any sort of criticism of the authorities world-wide who are hunting these terrorists. It just seems like they melt into the shadows, and like the rabid vermin that they are, escape through dime-sized holes. Wouldn't it be great if they found all of them? I know that wouldn't solve the problem nor deter future attacks, but those four would be caught.

Also today, Mom stopped by on her way home from her weekly get-together with her group of retired teacher-friends. It made me so happy to see her happy and laughing. She hasn't been this way in years, it seems. School had become a burden for her, I think. I guess it happened slowly. The little things went by the wayside, but now she's rediscovering them.

I see the same thing happening in the my life and the lives of my friends. We are still trying so hard to get together and do things, but gradually, we're becoming so overwhelmed with jobs, kids, and other things that we see very little of each other. It's amazing how much there seems to be to be done during the course of a day. I have to go to work, prep lessons, clean up messes from me and my cats, buy groceries, try to get to the gym, and a million other daily trivialities. All this, and I don't even have kids or a husband added into that mix!

These things are important, but do we have to lose everything else? Is there no way to make space for the friend stuff, too? Is this just the way of the world? Maybe it's a part of growing up. If so, as I have said before, growing up sucks.

Some of the separation also comes because most of my very best friends live at least 90 minutes away from me. However, I hardly ever see the ones who live 5 minutes away, either, so that's not the whole explanation. If it weren't for church, I might never see anybody except the people I work with and my immediate family.

Something has to be done about this. I don't want to have to wait until retirement to rediscover my friends. I don't know what I'm going to do yet, but I'll try to think of something. One change I know I can make is to try to get our supper club back together. It sort of fell apart during the spring, but now maybe we can revitalize it now that everyone will be back in the school year schedule.

I have to find some balance. That's the trick, though, right?