For one much too short summer, there were 5 or 6 friends who hung out at my house pretty much all the time. My children were small and we had a “kiddie pool” in the front yard. You know the type: inflatable, about 2 feet deep, big enough for 3 or 4 smallish adults or 4 or 5 kids.
For that whole summer my friends and I made our children to take turns with us in the pool. Sometimes it was “Adult Swim” time and sometimes it was “Kiddie Swim” time. There was a sandbox and tons of outside toys for the kids when it was adult swim time. When it was kiddie swim time, the moms sat in the sunshine and did all sorts of fun craft projects.
That summer I didn’t have to worry about work; I was teaching and it was one of very few summers in my life when I had some free time and no worries about employment. It was awesome.
With time, all of the women that spent time at my house that summer moved away or got married or had children of their own – or more children – or some combination of the three. Although I still consider all of them friends, none of us spend anywhere near as much time together as we did that year.
A few days ago, one of those old friends called me. She was experiencing some problems and needed someone to talk to. I can’t even describe how glad it made me to be the someone that she called. Even though I wasn’t sure how to advise her and didn’t really have any words of wisdom to offer, it was a pleasure to be the person she called when she needed to talk.
The topic of this blog is inspiration and motivation and it is utterly astounding that it hasn’t occurred to me to write a post about friendship before now. Good friends offer greater inspiration than almost anything else. Of course, when it comes down to it we are each responsible for getting up and making things happen everyday, but knowing your friends are going to be with you along the way sure does make it better.
Thanks to all of my good friends. It’s good to know you.