Relationships and Birthdays and Lessons Trying to Be Learned

I am trying to be the person I want to become. Most days I fail miserably. I can turn into a judgemental, harpy person. Does it count that I'm trying?

Then I have a few days that string together ... like notes in a song I love. How trite is that?

Yesterday, I had birthday wishes on Facebook, my email, texts and voicemails. My Aunt Ann sang happy birthday to me and was a little p***'d off when my Uncle Harry got on the extension and interrupted her serenade. Our friends, the Englands, joined us for dinner and you know, they didn't have to do that. I talked to my Aunts -- Connie and Judy. Our cleaning lady (don't go there) left me a card and a flower. I met Abby and Big Sal for a drink and had a great time catching up.

Birthdays are great in that people acknowledge you and wish you well. If I'm living my life in the way I want to do it, I should do that with every encounter.

A big chunk of my work life is spent building (or trying to build) relationships. I am humbled and awed that the reason I enjoy my work so much is that I have such wonderful relationships with incredible friends and family. And that has helped me to build relationships with others.

Ok, this was a really sappy post. I'll get back to being snarky next time.

Addicted to Facebook

Hello, my name is Sheri and I need a 12-step program. I am addicted to Facebook.

I love it. I love you, my friends. I love seeing your children and grandchildren. I love hearing about your day. I like checking out which pages you "like" and seeing what mutual friends we have.

For my media friends, I love your weather forecasts, your updates on breaking news and the fact that you interact with us regular people.

My aunts and my cousins, well ... without Facebook, I wouldn't know your latest blog, see your latest interests, know you play silly games ... I wouldn't get to share as much of your life as I do now.

High school friends and college friends -- wow, the power to reconnect! To see you as your grown up selves and superimpose that image with the one in my memory. It's mind boggling.

Seriously, I know what's going on with my church family because they put it on Facebook.

A few months ago, I was in a meeting with a vendor and my boss. The vendor was giving me great compliments and (jokingly) said, "You need to give her a raise." My boss replied, "Whatever... every time I check she's on Facebook."

Of course, he is my friend on Facebook and the only way he would know I was on it is he is on it too.

Guilty! I open it at home. I open it at work. I float between whatever I am working on and checking the status of my friends. I wait for Faith to tell me who I should pray for and I wait for Susan's hysterical posts. I long for Kristen's newest adventures and recipes. I see the travels of my peeps and I cheer for their accomplishments.

And at least once a day, somebody, somewhere tries to tell me something new and my answer ends up to be, "I know. I saw it on Facebook."

The Stupid Pill

I read a great line in a novel I was reading lately.

"When did you take the stupid pill and how quickly does it wear off?"

As someone who has taken a number of stupid pills in her life, I immediately identified. I am also guilty of looking at and listening to someone while judging them completely and totally addicted to stupid pills.

We all do stupid things. Some are harmless. Others wreck our marriages, our children, our finances, our trust in others and their ability to trust us.

I was recently looking at some photos on Facebook of people I love dearly. I saw a crazy amount of cleavage and beer bottles. I saw young people who will one day be looking for a job and these photos will come back to haunt them. I saw people I love who took the stupid pill.

Social Networking

A couple of years ago, I wrote this thing that appeared in our local paper, The Indianapolis Star and it was all about how people (especially politicians) throw around the greeting, "Hello Friends."

I don't remember exactly what I wrote but I remember it had to do with the definition of friendship.

Enter social networking. I was a hold out to Facebook. I am still a hold out on Twitter. (Really, my day is not that interesting.) But, I am a marketing person and I am supposed to reasonably keep up with the times. So, I joined. And now I am addicted a little bit.

At first, I thought it was amazing that someone, anyone!, would want to friend me. Then I would catch myself in a lazy evening or at couple of stop lights, I checked Facebook. Now I have something like 200 friends and I promise you, I do not have 200 friends in real life. It's fun to see what's going on with high school & college friends, old business associates and cousins I don't see very often.

But sometimes I need to remind myself that this is not reality. Running over to a girlfriend's house is friendship. Planning a trip to the girlfriend who has been there since I was 5-years old is reality. Worrying about medical tests for a person I love is friendship.

Sometimes you get one of those prodding things: "You should be friends with XXX -- you have 18 friends in common." I clicked "Yes" a couple of times. Never heard back and you know what that means ... Ignore! Guess he forgot we were married for a couple of years.

Social networking is fun but I still know who my friends are.