Changing not Exchanging

Dear Friends,

What gift will we exchange this year?

Give me the gift of your time, that's all I want. We don't need to talk about the crazy people you work with and what you'd really like to say to them or the latest buzz in the entertainment world. Let's talk about our friendship.

Let's talk about what we'd like to bring into our lives in the coming months. We have all lost something this year, let's not make this a brag fest.

Let's not meet where it's noisy and we have to shout above the forced office parties, where other people are glancing at their watches planning a quick get-a-way. (And none of us can remember when our hearing was better.)

Please don't feel like we need to squeeze in a dinner during these busy weeks ahead, we could wait until later to have a real conversation when we are all more relaxed, less stressed and not too confused.

Let's do something different and just bring ourselves when we meet. Let's face each other and share our experiences of the months gone by.Tell me about You.

Give me the gift of your time, that's all I want. Let's remind eachother why we're Friends.

Outgrowing your friendship

As little people, anyone who would catch our ball or push your swing was your friend.

Then we became bigger and competed for boyfriends, spots on the coveted team or musical performance.

And then we grew up, or so it seemed.

As a follow up to my last posting, this one comes as a request from a reader and “real-decades-long-friend”. She was saddened as she is occasionally at the loss of one of her long time friendships. When they worked together, they had common ground, discussing and complaining of mutual irritants. They went out to dinner and watched movies and talked on the phone about their children’s lives. They supported each other as friends do.

Courtesy Pixabay - Suhica

Then my friend decided that it was time to start dating, take up some new projects, get fit. Her friend didn’t like it, she resented the time they were now spending apart. She criticized and felt left out. My friend was not prepared for the cruel and hurtful things that were thrown at her character. What? She wondered, brought that on?

Change. That’s what brought it on. When one person makes a change, the relationship will change. Expectations from each party are affected. With these two people, one wanted more time apart, the other wanted nothing to change. The old friend did not celebrate her friend’s growing “awesomeness”, she couldn’t cope with it so she lashed out.

Sometimes, our growth means that we will lose someone. It can make us sad, but we must look at it as a chapter in our life. Evaluate your changes; reflect and be brutally honest with yourself on whether they are healthy and primarily good, and seek out others who can support your new thinking. 

It’s okay to grieve the loss of a friendship, hug the good memories close to you. (Click to Tweet)

...and prepare yourself for a new friend.

The Gift I Got Today

Today I got a Gift.
Time.
To spend with a friend, to talk, to laugh to cry.
To walk, to share
To chat about
Books, and personal challenges, vitamins and goals.
To drink over-priced wine and to enjoy it.
To talk about our shared past and our pending future.
To dream and to tell the goodness to honest truth.
And to know that the Time together
is our Gift to each other.

Because rarely
do we live long enough and deep enough
to know the value of Friendship while we are still in the midst of it.

The People who Matter

I want something from a friendship. I want a connection that comes from sharing. There will always be someone around to carry on idle banter but those special conversations are don't happen everyday. You get to throw away pretenses and indulge in honesty with the people you trust.

What I want is the meaty, juicy conversations. The conversations that leave you at the end with the “aahh! I am so lucky to have this person in my life” or the "ooh, I didn't know that about you!". When you walk away, you often take some huge self discovery or some itty-bitty piece of learning. That’s where VALUE comes from. So when you encounter this, when you “don’t want the evening to end”, TELL these people how much they bring to your life. It will enrich both of your lives to hear these words we seldom speak.

TELL them how you have thought about the words they have shared in the past, and reflected about the lessons that they have learned. TELL them that you are proud to have them in your circle.

There will  always be someone at the water-cooler to sprinkle about niceties of the weekend or to commiserate about the weather. Those people are needed too but the best people are those who hold you up to be the Best You. They make you think and are far more rare and need to be recognized. 

They are the ones who ask and share the hard questions.

My circle of women

It is not about lipstick, high heels and lace

It is about toiling together under a half yard of top soil before darkness sets.

It is about baking 4 dozen muffins before your kitchen gets too hot.

It’s about recognizing when your friend needs a break with drinks and appies at the neighbouring pub

And when to sit still and look at the river.

It’s about handing your friend a disposable camera, while she sets out on her first cross country trip after the death of her husband.

And encouraging your friend of thirty plus years to walk down the hospital hallway that seems a hundred miles long.

It’s about emptying your parent’s house, wiping your tears, and eating grilled cheese cooked on the only frying pan left in the house.

Then putting the names of the children on the remaining items, because Grandma would want them to have it.

It’s about sharing the small things, new seedlings poking through the dirt, and the new guests in the birdhouse hanging on your porch.

It’s about celebrating getting the long-awaited retro cheque just in time for your vacation.

It’s about leaning on each other and cheering each other to the finish line. Whatever that line might be. So when the last breath happens, we can smile together for a journey well enjoyed in the company of your favourite people.

Be Still My Mind

There's a man in my Friday night yoga class who reminds me of my old friend Dan.

I don't know his name and I don't need to. He looks sort of like Dan, speaks in a careful, unassuming way and then when you are least expecting it, will let a wickedly hilarious remark just slide in.

I remember my teenage days with my friend Dan, while we each navigated our way into adulthood. Now we live on opposite sides of the country and our paths seldom cross without emails rapidly flying back and forth in the planning.

We met some years ago in Vancouver, together with another friend Eddy, who was up from Petaluma. Together for a few days, we walked along the sea-wall, stopped for endless cups of decaf coffee (for Dan), had sushi, and talked, photographed and laughed. They humoured me by eating as many meals as possible out-doors. I ate a lot of fish that weekend, I who had escaped the cold dreary March in my home town.

At a wedding, I introduced Eddy to the girl who would become his wife. I wonder where Dan's wife is working right now. Was it Cats, that she'd danced in?

Breathe slowly, in and out, stop thinking, in and out. Stop my monkey mind, too much coffee today.

Another time, we met in Montreal, and drank draft at the pub which was down the street from our high school. How do so many decades go by so quickly? There were a few of us, old friends joining together in an informal reunion of sorts. Catching up with the present, reminiscing of the past. Remembering how it was one of us who instigated the petition to allow the wearing of jeans to school.

He even looks like Dan from behind. Stop it, breathe slowly, in and out, stop thinking.

Some years later, Dan stepping off the train in red pants. College days of him throwing his head back while he had a good laugh.

And all this happened in my head even before the three beautiful OOOMMMs that started our class.

Funny how familiarity beckons us. Unsuspecting we are and eager to follow our thoughts down the rabbit hole.

Balls of different sizes

We have all read on our email or heard of the story of the professor who was teaching his class on the importance of balancing the various parts of our lives.

He proceeded to fill an empty vessel of different sized balls. Each ball standing for something of importance in your life, our vessel equals our life. He spoke of which balls and in which order we fill our vessel will help keep our life fulfilled. Simply put, too much time at the bar on the way home to meet with small balls (relative strangers) will take away from the time with (supposedly) big balls - your family.

The concept of filling our lives with important things is not new or earth-shattering. But in reality, it can continue to elude us despite our best efforts.


We have all been in a relationship, so closely connected, so living-in-each other's-pocket that we thought it would never end. But life happens and directions can alter. So what do we make of the realization that our partner in this juggling game of balls has decreased the size of the ball with our name on it without our knowledge?


If our vessel has a big ball named "You", but in your vessel the ball name "Me" are not the same (relative) size, one of us is losing out! We will feel slighted, short changed and eventually not as important in the other person's life.


We automatically do this evaluation each time we pick up the phone or send an email to stay connected to someone. But if they seldom reciprocate, we will soon feel that our importance in their life has diminished.


Juggling is a skill. All our relationships are all colourful and circular. The ones we focus on will continue their dance in our lives, and some will bounce and roll away.

Hearts Day

May the love you receive today comfort you when you need it, be gentle when you need a hug, be firm when you need a push.
May it give you coffee in the middle of the afternoon, and a foot rub at the end of the day.
May the love you receive today make you feel special every moment and know that there is a port in any storm.
May it be the love that you deserve and sometimes forget to give yourself.
Enjoy your today.

Bittersweet Tea Sisters

Plan on an extra long trip when you are with her.
She refused to make any left-hand turns due to an earlier painful experience.
Even though they were almost all wildly wrong, her stories were as colourful as some of her outfits.
She saw no good reason that striped or plaid did not 'go" with a floral.
And then she'd add a hat.
She saw in pictures, I saw in numbers
We always found our destination.
We were a contrary partnership for a short while,
and then one day our differences got too big.

Crackers - Crack-pot, Crack, Crack up

We are all somewhat cracked. Whether due to casual mishandling or by brutal force. Some cracks barely noticeable, some spackled over with heavy duty band-aids. We suture with work, working-out, drown our sorrows, use crack, and add initials after our names on our business cards.

We race, we weave, we meet in staff rooms, we like each other, we can't tolerate each other, we try to be polite. We pretend, we deny, we shop only at Sunterra, we avoid big green boxes with massive parking lots.

Who the heck are we?

If we are fortunate, we have friends, and we recognize each other's cracks. Friends overlook, they share remedies, they hand you a safe band-aid when you need it. Because our cracks makes us real. As we grow, our fragility makes us gentle and aware of others.

And by the time Friday arrives, many crack-pots have crossed our path. Finally, you can eat pizza, watch a movie and crack up...together. I am grateful for TAG Meetings. Thank you T. & A. for your time, your consistency and for knowing my flaws and loving me anyway.

Guided to Cross

My friend M. and I met the day her family moved into our neighbourhood. Over the following 22 years, we have often reminisced about our meeting. Me, mom to 2 small children, shy and not commonly taken to walking over to a stranger with an out-stretched hand. M, with 2 smaller children, an army brat quite used to packing up and going but still surprised at the behaviour of a stranger, me! From that day onwards, I have truly believed that I was guided to make a connection that has proven to be invaluable over the life of our friendship. We walk, we talk, we eat, we wine, and we grow.

We don’t see each other often, sometimes it seems like months go by without contact and then it is like a simultaneous drawing together (you know, the “hey! I been thinking of you, so glad you called” conversations we have with our favourite people). Some friendships were meant to be, and I give thanks for having the awareness that day so long ago when I crossed the street because... I HAD to, I didn’t know why but I knew that it had to happen. That day, the earth shifted to bring me a friend.

M. brings many things to my life; laughter, deep thought, someone who has seen me at my best and certainly at my worst, who supports, and who speaks the truth.

I share below, one of her gifts to the world. This urban oasis can only be created by a human being with a good soul.

Did you or didn’t you, when intuition told you to step into the unknown? (Click to Tweet)