Going to start off by saying, I had a terrible night last night.  I think I must not have gotten into that deep, dreamless sleep, that allows us to awake feeling refreshed.  I woke up a few times, terrified, as if I had had an awful nightmare, but don’t remember any.  I also woke up drenched in sweat, at least twice. Night sweats, are nasty, and be careful where your mind goes with that just now.  One friend already threw the dreaded “M” word at me this morning, and he is damn lucky he lives in Georgia, because I may not be very big, but the aim on my size 7 and 1/2 POINTY toed boots, is pretty darn accurate!  That, added to the fact that he is also subjecting me to 3 hours of  The Beatles tonight, and he could have been feeling some pain.  I am big enough to admit, I never cared for them.  I have always been the chick who sees the trend, and goes the opposite direction.  I have a greater appreciation for the four, as solo artists.   I used to go so far as to claim I HATED them, but I do certainly now understand to a greater degree, the impact they had on all music that has come after them.  There, I won’t say that outloud again, so you’re lucky it’s in print.

So, I didn’t actually spring from my bed with joy and levity in my heart, but another great friend suggested a bubbly bath..I know, isn’t it cute?  I filled the tub, threw in some raspberry bubbles, grabbed my wireless headset, and turned on some Colby Caillet.  Mellow, but easy to sing to, and the cat didn’t even run away this time, so pitch couldn’t have been too bad, this morning. As I was deep conditioning my hair, and waiting for the clay on my face to set, and not just any clay mind you, it was dead sea clay, which APPARENTLY, is the best,  I got to contemplating, and reflecting.  I had looked at my website last night and realized I hadn’t written since Sunday. When I started doing this, I promised myself that I would only write about things that I cared about, and not just for the sake of putting anything out there.  I have held true to that thus far, or thrown in a recipe as filler.  When I thought about it last evening, I really couldn’t think of a thing I wanted to say, of any importance.

Now, those of you who know me, know that I always have something to say.  I am very outspoken.  I have opinions on everything, but I don’t feel as if I am opinionated, or overbearing in any of my many convictions.  I tell people who are interested in any kind of verbal relationship with me, never to ask me a question they aren’t prepared to hear the honest answer to.  I will talk about, and sometimes, ramble about, anything and everything.  I am very often the person who will actually say, what everyone else was thinking, and may be afraid to say out loud.  Again, I don’t ever mean to be malicious, or use that to an unfair advantage.  I have been known to use the ability to turn on tears to get teenage boys to stop fighting, but that is a skill for another topic. (The next one on the agenda actually.  The steam loosened some great dialog within myself.)

All of this leads up to the fact that I am also an over-thinker.  Shocker, I know. I quite often, after a conversation has ended, and I am reflecting, wonder..did he mean this, or was it that, when he said that thing he said?  Hmmm.  I can drive myself a little crazy if I don’t hear from someone when I expected I should, or if the kids don’t call when they get home, after they have been on the road.  I worry.  I used to think it was just because I am a mom, and that is a very useful characteristic for a mother to have.  I am not so sure it isn’t just a part of who I am as a person.  I care, sometimes maybe a little too much. Again, a topic for another day.

I digressed from my original thread already.  In the tub, face cracking, bubbles, music, and I am thinking.  It suddenly dawned on me that I had done an unintentional disservice to a lot of you people in a passing comment I made Thursday night.  As I was leaving a party, the hostess said we should get together for wine, and I said, sort of dramatically, because I do do drama, that that would be fun, because I had no friends.  She told me she would be my friend, and add me on facebook even.  Look Mom, I made a new friend!

That, in tub-time reflection, was a terrible thing for me to have said.  It sounded funny, and got the intended laugh, but it is entirely untrue.  I have some incredibly amazing friends.  OK, so I don’t have the typical friends, that drop over for coffee, or we play cards with on Saturday nights.  I don’t have someone I call up on a whim and say let’s do lunch or go shopping, but I have some very, very deep emotional connections, with a lot of great people.

As open and honest as I am, I don’t always make friends easily, this is a fact.  I have a huge capacity to love and get close to people, but that can open myself up to a whole lot of hurt, as well.  Having grown up around the military my entire life, you learn to shield yourself from the usual inevitability, that the best friends you make along the way, are going to move away, or move on. It’s a definite truth, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.  I came to the conscious decision, very early into my life as a military wife, not to get too close to people.  I am going to throw this out there, a tiny bit off topic, but I always hated the term “dependent”  as the one the military uses for the member’s spouse.  If I were a dependent personality type, marrying into the military would be one of the dumbest moves ever.  You can’t depend on a military spouse to ever be somewhere, as a guarantee.  They are owned, lock, stock and barrel, by the government, who, if they wanted them to have families, would have issued them one.  Sorry, quick digression, yet again.

I used to say, that I didn’t have any friends who knew me from school days.  I envied people who had been around the same circle of friends their whole life. I moved around a lot.  I went to 9 different schools.  I was the new kid, I think to this day, if I am honest, when I moved out to a rural area, in grade 11.  I was a city girl, who dressed, talked and acted differently, from the other kids, who went to school from primary to grade six, right across the road, from the high school, I was thrown into.  It’s a good thing I already felt the desire to be different!

The reason I say this, is that the key phrase there was “used to”.  With the introduction to facebook and other social networks, in the last few years, I have reconnected with friends, who I can now say, have known me since school.  In this day and age, of everyone moving so quickly in their lives, and being so consumed with the general speed with which this world turns, we have this fabulous forum to keep the people, or find the people, that matter the most to us.  It is truly mind-boggling sometimes, when I think about the relationships I would so desperately be missing out on without the internet. Don’t mistake me here, I also know the seedy, evil, under-belly of this phenomenon, yet another subject I will be covering, because I have seen that side as well, be assured, first-hand.

It astounds me, the people I have found, or who have found me, through social networking sites.  Good, trustworthy, loyal, loving friends, that I threw RIGHT under the bus with one comic statement.  I am publicly apologizing, right here, and right now, to each of you, even though you had no idea I had wronged you, because I know I have.  I  honestly appreciate all of you, each and every one, who allow me the honour of calling you friend.  It doesn’t matter if we met in junior high at the roller-skating rink, or right here, online, in the last few months, through a casual comment, or the exchange of pleasantries, you all mean the world to me, and keep me from flying off the edge of this crazy planet some days.

I absolutely love, that I now have friends, and loved ones who live all over this amazingly big and yet incredibly small, world of ours.  How else, but online, could I ever have made contact and connections with people from all corners of the globe?  It is a fascinating journey, one which grows and evolves every single day.  I am grateful for the reconnects, but I am entirely thankful for the new relationships that have built and are building, thanks to the ability to interact with such a diversity of individuals.  I may not get to go out and have coffee with all of you, but we can have coffee, or tea, or beer, right here in my kitchen, while you are right there in yours, and have every bit as meaningful of conversation.

All of that equals up to me, again apologizing, for inadvertently slighting all of the amazing friends I genuinely have.  It is not something I will do again, now that I have done the self-reflecting and over analyzing.  Know that each of you, is appreciated and respected, for everything you bring to my life, sometimes in ways you may not even be aware.  I won’t take that lightly again.