What am I thankful for this week?

1. Learning how to keep friends or rather how to maintain friendships. I don’t have any friends from high school that still play a role in my life and certainly not any pre high school days. It always amazes me how folks still hang out with people they knew when they were 15. I was so eager to “get out” that once I escaped I never looked back except for my family. I’ve been much better about this with my friends from college, graduate school, and North Carolina. The importance of friendship has become more relevant for me as I’ve gotten “older”. I’m thankful for that change and I hope that it continues. It takes work but it totally worth it. This smacked me in the face again during my trip to NC to visit my friend Dorothy Lou.

2. The nice people at the bank who helped me when there were fraudulent charges on my debit card. They were incredibly understanding and worked swiftly to help me out in this disconcerting situation. I felt supported. The banker also happened to be really cute but of course, he was married. They all are :/.

3. Simple things make me really happy. A good book, sweatpants, and a chair sounds like a fantastic weekend. In fact, I need more of these weekends.

4. My mom saw the benefit of “experiences”. She took us places as children and helped us understand how to behave in public and interact with others. We went to museums, the library, concerts, the circus, plays, and anything else that came to town that she could afford or just chose to believe she could afford. She also was the best field trip parent and always made it a priority to go along with us as we explored different places with our classmates. She later revealed how much she enjoyed watching me on field trips because of how I excited I became by all the details of history and science. I would follow the docent around rapt with attention on every word they said. I also really loved answering questions. Some things never change :). I’m a front row kind of gal.

I think about this whenever I hear my Little Sister say things like, “I’ve never been to an art museum.” or “I’ve never been to a play.” It makes me sad because those things always opened my eyes to the fact that the world was so much bigger than our apartment in Portsmouth, VA. It inspired me to “get out” and live a different life.

Later Y’all