Keeping tabs

The distance between me and my friends and family seems to be good for my relationships...weird right?

It seems that the closer you are to a situation or person the more you take it for granted.  In the past few weeks I have realized that I didn't just move away from home, I moved out of that bubble that distorts your perception.  Realizing just how much the people that I was lucky enough to have around me mean is a blessing. Their value has grown by leaps and bounds when I can't just drive to them for coffee.  "Distance makes the heart grow fonder" may not be such a antiquated phrase after all.

The silliest things make me think of the most random people back on the mainland!  Steve has taken to the Passion fruit tea with 2 pumps of sweetener (that's a Mariah drink), and is obsessed with finding a way to get his Angels baseball (Scott, Steve, Mariah and I went to a game together)! We found this little place called Pho 1 ( I think about B&E, Megan and Jill and I at Chinese new year) and there is a store called Simply Organized (that's Jules...the most organized person I know) that I pass every day on my walk home from work.  All these little reminders and a thousand others make me think of my loved ones, and people long gone from my life on a daily basis.

You may say that it's nostalgia and homesickness, but I truly feel that this is a way for me to process the true importance of people in my life.  I have talked to my Dad more in the last four weeks then I did in the six weeks prior to leaving! It's as if removing the nearness and availability of people has let me look at my relationships with a clearer lense.  Seeing which people and relationships are convenient and which are important and valuable.  I am ashamed to say that some people I thought of as convenient are really valuable, and some that I poured effort into were only convenient.

Finding that I have a real overwhelming desire to be everyone's newest and dearest friend was a little bit of a shock.  I always thought that I was thoughtful and deliberate in my friend group and that I was secure enough in myself to be discerning about what I needed in a support system...not so much, well, not as much as I thought.  The great part about this realization is that I know it now; and I can cultivate those relationships that have fundamentally changed me, in a good way, going forward.

That doesn't mean I'm going to suddenly drop people from my life, I care for all my peeps, but I'm going to redirect my energy so that the people I love know it.  People should know how important they are, by word and deed, because everyone should know their value, wether they are near or far.

...Nature girl