Reading / Friends

I like reading, especially during football season. Needless to say I have done a lot of reading lately. Currently I am reading a book by one of my favorite authors - Nora Roberts. Before this I have been reading every good Harry Potter fan fiction I could find. But it has to be good. Not too violent and a happy ending. Anyway... I started this book without reading what it was about and started to laugh. It actually starts with 3 ten-year-old boys in Maryland, who are best friends - decide to make a blood oath of friendship and end up letting loose a demon. Oh, and they end up with a few special powers.... Ok.... Something is really going on here when I can't get away from 3 friends, magic, powers, demons...



Anyway, as I was reading I thought back to when I was 10 or 11. Harry Potter starts at 11. This story starts with the boys being 10. I remember having friends at 10 that I thought would be my friends forever. I remember the spit in your hand and shake oaths. (Didn't like blood much.) I remember thinking, breathing, living for these friendships all through my teens. I still know where those friends are but I am definiately not with them. It is funny where life leads us. My grandmother had a set of girlfriends. She was friends with these women for over 70 years. Of course, none of them left their little home town, they all married friends, or even brothers of each other. But I remember thinking it was cute that at 80 she was still running around with her girls. It was hard for her to watch the girls leave this earth. I am sure they were waiting for her it was her time to go. Do we still have those kind of friendships?



Travel and technology has made the world so much smaller. But at the expense we don't create the close knit communities or relationships we used to. It is easier to stay indoors and be entertained so we don't put the time into the relationship. It is easier to move across the country for a better opportunity. With the distance the relationship can suffer. Which is better? We lose the small number you can rely on completely, but you gain the opportunity to meet so many more people. Each opportunity to meet another gives us the ability to touch another life, even if just for a moment. That touch could make all the difference in the world.



Life isn't a story book but we do create our own stories. My story will definiately be a story of multiple touchs of many people. It is a good thing I have 7 siblings. I will always have them.