LIFETIMES OF FRIENDS AND LIFE'S CHALLENGES AS I SEE IT

For the past several weeks I've had a touch of the dreaded writer's block, and I've been thinking a lot about all my friends and lifetime challenges that we've all faced.  It's true.  Over the past few years I have had the privilege of becoming re-acquainted with many people that I grew up with and went to school with.  I will admit that Facebook has been largely  instrumental in this.  This is the year we had one huge class reunion that included all classed of 1960 through 1969. 

I will be first to admit, that even though I have seen faces, “friended” and “chatted” with most of these people, and I ended up, (just like everyone else), looking at name tags.  I actually did recognize many of them, and  I’m just as sure that there were many that perused my name tag as well.  All of the people had changed in one way or another, including myself, and I suppose one doesn’t notice subtle changes in self as much as one would notice changes (after long periods of time) in others.  People adjust to changes in themselves and their spouses, and children rather quickly.  My, my, my…how we’ve all changed, and we’re all still cute and adorable, but just in another way!  We all turned out to be pretty magnificent people.

The Mexican restaurant was beautiful….up on a hill, the dinner was served on the patio.  There had to have been at least 30 large round tables, each seating about 8 people. We seated ourselves and were joined by six other folks.  This made the evening even more special.  I introduced the Royster around for a while, and then circulated a bit, bought raffle tickets and chatted.  By the time I got back to our table, it was time to get in line for some really good Texas cooking. 

While sitting at our table, gazing around at peers and teachers from the past, I thought; We are common group of unique individuals. 

All of this brought forth the “rules of people and acceptance”.  I put that in quotation marks because these rules are in my head as though I invented them myself, though I don’t really believe it to be an original concept. 

•  We are a common grouping of animals, classified as humans, who are unique as individuals.  No two are exactly alike.  
• People will change with time, and should be allowed to be exactly who they are. 

• It's vital that we accept individuals for who they are, and do not expect them to be anything more or less than they are.  If I could make them more like ME, then I probably wouldn’t find them very interesting, nor would I like them very much.
• No one sees me the same way I see myself in the mirror, nor do they perceive the who in me as I perceive myself to be.
• Play the game with the cards you were dealt.  This means use what you were given. This makes one sit down to take inventory.  We forget what beautiful gifts we are given; and we take these gifts for granted.

We all have been down our prospective roads far enough to realize that we were put here to handle whatever is in front of us at the time, and further, to learn from it.  I sure hope I’ve learned from all the things I’ve stumbled over in the years I’ve been on this road.  Looks like there are several more miles of things to stumble over, study and learn from, and I can truthfully say that I look forward to it.  After you get over the shock of some of the stumbles, it’s just so damned interesting.

None of us solve problems and/or dilemmas in the same way, because we are all different and think differently.  There are NO cookie cutter kids.  And on another positive note, everything seems to fall back into place just where it’s supposed to; and not necessarily in the same place it was before, but just where it’s supposed to be.  That keeps us on our toes, and interested.   I think I’ll hang around for “the rest of the story”.