A to Z Challenge - F

A to Z Challenge – F

FORTUNE!!!

“The time is right to make new “F”riends.”

What a cool fortune for today –it has  an “F” word in it and I just can’t pass it up.  And while making new friends is amazing and fun, it doesn’t take away from the stable, deep friendships that I have with some of the amazing women that I call my sisters now. When I get to the first letter of the name (or first letter of their last name – since I already passed one!) I will have to tell the world how amazing they are with still protecting the innocent…ya know, it’s really hard to protect the innocent from the Vanilla Mama!

What exactly makes a friend? What do you look for in a friend? Usually I am not really on the “make” for a new friend – it just kind of happens. There is a shared laugh, shared experience, some sort of connection that may happen in an instant or there is a kind of slow burn where over time you come to appreciate a person. I have both types, in fact I have a few friends that on the surface you would never imagine that we would be friends – but it is all about connections.

People are made to connect. People are made to form attachments – it goes back to the infancy of our human race…an individual on their own would have an extremely if not impossible time providing food and shelter, even in fact, a couple. Coming together and living in caves, people formed connections, friendships to survive. Forming groups, societies, each person giving their talents – it is how we as a human race have evolved. We are still doing it today –

I am still doing it today, I meet new people everyday in my work – both jobs – I have formed incredible friendships with people that I may never meet in person and I daily I meet people that I could imagine myself sitting across from and having a glass of wine and getting to know them better. How in the busy lives that some of us live do we nurture and feed these connections? Phone calls, IMing, Facebook, FACE TIME, even that amazing little act of jotting a note and putting it in – gasp – a MAILBOX!!

Everyday “the time is right to make new “F”riends,” Everyday! You truly never know when you might meet a soul sister (you know the song is going to start in your head!). You might meet your soul sister (brother) at a basketball game where your sons are playing together…you might meet a soul sister (brother) in middle school that even though you don’t see or hear from very often , you think about and know that you could pick up right where you left off, you could even meet a soul sister (brother) at work and know that you will still be trading silly stories for the rest of your life.

Be open, allow your heart to grow and let someone in. An incredible side effect of writing this blog is getting know other people through their blogs – I may never meet them in person – but, from reading what they have written I think I get a pretty good idea of who they are. Some people are so raw and open that you automatically feel connected, others are a bit more mysterious and you want to know more about them – so you keep reading, you dig a little deeper.

I will say, everyday “the time is right to make new “F”riends,” but no matter how many new friends I make – I will always treasure those friends that have helped me grow into the person that I am today. I won’t delve into this too deeply now – this is about new friends – but, you can always renew your friendship with someone you have known for years. In fact…I challenge you to do that today! Pick up the phone, open up your facebook, dig through your old emails and renew a connection, make a new friend – make a fresh connection!

Live, Laugh, Love ~

Vanilla Mama

BTW – Your lucky numbers today from this fortune: YOUR BEST FRIEND’S PHONE NUMBER!!!