Community and Friends

This is an area of my life that definitely needs some increase and improvement as I have been treading water too long now.  It does seem to come and go in waves...

Start out slowly and cautiously with great anticipation and enthusiasm.
Positive attitude that this will be worth time and efforts.
Increased efforts to maintain an equal balance where I am giving as much as I am receiving.
Satisfaction in this balance.
Re-examination if it is still worth the effort or sometimes life just changes.
Watch as little problems are allowed to grow to destruction.
Limited time and effort or end of involvement.

I have been involved in many Community activities and groups over the years.  Outside of church activities in my growing years and a few fund raisers, I had experience with Girl Scouts mostly both as a young girl and as an adult.  Those were some of the best memories growing up and I found that to be an inspiration to share with my own daughter and grew to be scout leader and service unit manager in four counties.  There were so many areas to grow in the Girl Scout experience.  It ended when my daughter grew up to spend her extra time at a job and building her life and my job began to include more travel.  During these wonderful half dozen years or so, I was also involved with Boy Scouts as my son and husband grew in their directions.  My skills as certified lifeguard and in first aide allowed me to be involved in most outdoor activities.  It was a fun and rewarding time.

During the years my children were growing, Keith and I were members of the Lions Club.  I held leadership roles and there were many yearly fund-raising projects to benefit the community such as Market Day, 5th & 6th Grade Basketball, High School Scholarships, flowers and caring for the Veterans Memorial and other public places in town, and so many individual needs and projects as they became known.  I was very much involved with the local school as a home room mother who was always available for field trips, bringing food for celebrations and other activities, PTA involvement and ballgames concessions.  These efforts ended by 2000.

In my neighborhood, I check on elderly neighbors and go to the store for them on occasion.  There are always individual needs such as house burnings or extraordinary health problems for people in need and I try to support them in some way locally.  I make large donations yearly to the Salvation Army. I recently started contributing monthly to a backpack program for school children in the Joplin area so the needy can have food on the weekends in addition to their school breakfast/lunch programs. On a larger scale, I support The National Wildlife Federation.  I am finding as my work keeps me home more often with state budget restraints, I have more time on my hands and will start looking into some volunteering by the time I retire.

Friends are few and far between.  I would like to think that I have maybe a half dozen old friends that go way back but I'm not sure I am on their top ten list.  Most fall into that Limited Time and Effort category and all are far enough away that efforts to get together require at least a week of flex time to make it work.  I try to make the effort but after three tries, I move on and try again another time.  I do not see any old friends making that much of an effort to see me.  Of course, old friends just accept that life happens and we enjoy whatever time we find together without any score-keeping or judgement.  Life would be sad without them.

Now it seems that relationships are maintained online more often through emails and social networks like Facebook.  While I look forward to emails from friends and relatives, they have become fewer and farther apart as people get too busy to write in their own words.  It has been replaced more often with forwarded emails of shared interests to keep in touch.  These are usually clever and I am happy to receive/share them as long as they are not political or overly self-serving.  I just want to know how people I care about are doing.  Things that interest me are what makes friends happy or sad, health issues, progress or challenges in their goals, issues of interests that affect them directly, and so much more.  I would like to think that friends would return that interest in me.  I will continue to keep in contact with friends by email.

Since the winter of 2010, I have participated in Facebook online.  My original intention was to keep up with daily activities and thoughts from family members.  I saw this network as being a fast means of communication and also one that doesn't disrupt lives and is there whenever one wants to participate. This network got my interest when Keith had a motorcycle accident after midnight the Fall of 2009 and family was calling me about it early the next morning before the doctor had evaluated the seriousness.  I saw the need for an immediate prayer circle.  I have since expanded from 12 'friends' to about 30 and am happy at that number for now because it includes only people I have actually met.  Right now it is mostly entertaining and keeps me open and engaged in people's lives on a daily basis even though it is basically superficial.  Mostly I want to keep in touch to pray for others in need and to have them know when I am in need.  It is a good break in my workday from time to time in my home office especially when my human contact is limited during the weeks I am home.  I expect I will continue using online social media but will try to keep it as real as possible.  As with emails, I will 'unfriend' people that offend me with their bully politics and self-serving agendas.  I will honestly and fairly acknowledge my 'friends' with affirmations as deserved and hope they will return the same to my posts.  I will evaluate my 'friend list' each year for activity.

It will be time to find new friends in this new phase.  Life changes and I need to find other people that have the amount of time to build and maintain friendships as I plan to have in retirement.  Just as I had friends from child-rearing years and  work-related relationships, I am anticipating I will have friends in retirement.  I will try to be an interesting and caring friend and maybe I will attract similar friends. I know I have to be a friend to have a friend.  Looking forward to that journey!