Thanks and thoughts

Thank you, dolimir_k for the card! I love getting mail that doesn't ask me for money! You win!

In other news, my friend tjbrown1978 goes under the knife this morning. He's giving a kidney to a friend, which makes him just about the sweetest person in Ohio. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.

We have a new addition to our humble abode. Last Friday, Maggie and I went to Lewisville and picked up Michelle's birthday present. It took a while to coax him out from under the car seat where he was hiding, and it was nervewracking for the owner of the car, who tsk-ed and informed him that he "was not making a good first impression," but coax him out we did, and now he is happy in our house. So, without further ado, I am pleased to announce that Nelly McAlister, cutest cat in all the world, has come to our home to stay. We love him, and he loves us. Pictures to come in the near future, if I don't plummet to my death by falling over him down the stairs.

Hope all is going well with all of you.

Disposable

The road traveled by the single girl (and maybe boy – I don’t know – I’ve never been a single boy) is a rocky one.

On the one hand, there are benefits of singlehood. The single girl’s schedule is her own. A significant other might make an appearance in the schedule, but true schedule meshing doesn’t often occur until there is talk of ending the singlehood, so she pretty much comes and goes as she pleases without much need to alert another person. The single girl has so much more time to focus on work, friends, television, news, etc. She is free to be spontaneous, free to flirt (…etc.) without much consequence, free to help others, and just free in general.

On the other hand, there are some downfalls. Singlehood can be lonely. The single girl has to take care of everything, because there’s not necessarily anyone else there to take up the slack. In fact, there may not even be anyone else there to lean on for support when the stress of everything is a little too much to bear. And sometimes, as exciting as Chuck is, keeping up with television is code for “all of my friends had plans, none of which happened to include me.”

If the single girl is lucky, she lives in a world where the benefits of singlehood far outweigh the downfalls. If she is super lucky, most of her friends also live in this world. If she is super duper lucky, she doesn’t leave this world until she meets someone who is worth giving it up for.

The only downfall to being super duper lucky is that the ignorance of what it’s like to not be so super duper lucky can make her an incredibly sucky friend to those who know all too well what that’s like.

Most of us have had seasons of being MIA on account of a significant other. They tend to take a lot of time. This may be hard on the previously single girl’s friends who are used to having her around, but it’s not unhealthy. It’s good to spend time getting to know someone who may become Someone.

It is not good, however, to become a flake. It’s not okay to make plans with someone and then cancel because someone better came along. That’s a horrible way to treat people, especially people who have been friends to her through lonelier times. Friends understand that they are not the most important person in her life (in fact, the longer people have been single, the more acutely aware they are that they are nobody’s first priority), but that doesn’t mean that they cease to be important at all. Most friends wouldn’t even mind the significant other joining them in their plans. They just don’t want to be discarded.

Having someone new in her life is exciting. Friends get that. Having someone new in her life requires time, leaving less time to spend with them. Friends get that. But having someone new in her life doesn’t make everyone else suddenly disposable.