Monday, January 6, 2014

Being Grateful

I have it in my head what I want this post to be about but it may stray from that. I'll try to keep on topic. I've been up for a long time. (I also started writing it a while ago as you will see by the date)

So, today is Thanksgiving and it also happens to be my birthday. This means that it's a holiday so people are generally with their family and, you can ask anyone with a birthday on a holiday or big event, you learn quickly to not expect much. I took it as an opportunity to be by myself, go to the parade and think.

What my thinking got me was this post here.



I'm very thankful for my friends. I'm thankful for my family too, mostly but they know that.
I fear that I don't express my thankfulness for my friends enough. It's slightly easier to stay connected nowadays but it seems harder to connect. I "talk" to my friends a lot but that generally consists of text messages, IMs, tweets and leaving posts on their walls for my friends who are now or were always long-distance buddies. I'm only marginally better with my at home friends, I feel. We meet up maybe once or twice a month and they buy me drinks and we try to remain current with our lives while swaying drunkenly to beats. It's good but I could do better.

My friends are the best people in the world and they deserve better.

I'm broke right now and have been for awhile. Blame the economy, lack of educational standards in comparison with my peers, lack of jobs I'm good at that will employ me... whatever. I've been broke for awhile and if my friends weren't who they were I couldn't have enjoyed many a night.

I know they enjoy making their friends happy and a lot of them have been my friends for years so remember a time when I could buy a bottle like it was nothing and none of them will complain about getting me a beer but I still feel like shite when it happens. I shouldn't or I shouldn't TOTALLY feel that way but there it is.

Crazier situation- I've made a friend on Facebook a while ago. We became friends just because we shared the same name and eventually learned that we have overlapping geeky interests. This dude is awesome and a good guy to, again, "talk" to, as are a lot of my "internet friends."* What makes him more awesome is that he sent me movie tickets, twice, just because. This guy knows me but he doesn't know me like my other pals and he took it upon himself to just send movie tickets to a guy in another state with the same name because a) he thought a movie was good and I should see it and b)it was my birthday on the second occasion. **

And maybe that's what friendship is- taking a chance on some dude not being a jerk and enjoying their random happiness and hoping that they are appreciative. My fear is that because of my current condition my appreciation for ALL MY FRIENDS and ALL THE THINGS THEY DO isn't as explicit or at the level I want it to be. I'm positive that they know I'm grateful; I just want them to know the degree that I'm grateful for their existence. These are great folks and I can't begin to show my joy they have in my life with a bottle of wine that I can't currently afford.

SO, I make them this promise-

My first born or free copies of all my future works.

The former is highly unlikely as that I'm currently single and definitely not "mingling" like I want*** but the latter is definitely doable and I have a list of people who automatically get my stuff gratis.

This is the best I can do while I'm currently freelancing and without any of my lottery dreams coming true. I do hope it's enough and I'm sure it will be because my friends are stupendous and are selfless individuals who see things in me that I don't sometimes recognize or believe, love me and I love back with the power of ten thousand suns.



*I hate saying "internet friends" like it makes someone a lesser friend, especially now in 2014.
**I should also add c)because he is a great soul but that goes without saying I think.
***Plus, who really wants this deal except for Rumpelstiltskin.