Monday, January 19, 2015

reflections on friendship: people come into your life for a reason...

I am in the process of writing two different blog posts right now, but both are extensive and will take me quite a while to process. One is a 2014 reflection that I have been writing for almost three weeks. (what can I say? 2014 was intense.) Another is about the Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend, because, obviously, I have to write a race recap. I'm working on it, I promise.

Anyways, as part of last weekend, when I was in Florida, then coming back to Indiana, I made some pretty major realizations.. realizations about the people who have come into my life.

I'm starting to realize that there might always be people that I miss. When I lived in Florida, I missed Indiana people, when I came back, I began to desperately miss my Florida people. I have people that I met in Florida that now live all over the United States, and I miss them, too. I think that I'll always have people that I miss, people everywhere. I'm not sure if that is part of just being who I am, or if it is one of those things that happens to everybody, but I'm leaning towards the idea that it might be something that happens universally.

I have spent a lot of time being a workaholic. I spent multiple years having multiple jobs. I don't like sitting still, doing nothing. I'm working on improving in that sense, in becoming comfortable with myself and with stillness enough so that I don't have to be constantly busy. It's not easy, but it is definitely a process that I'm working on. (for instance, I've only had one job since October... haha. But, at the same time, I've been in the gym quite often on my days off and, sometimes, on my way home from work.)

That being said, though, I may be a workaholic, I may be obsessed with being busy, but I've met the most beautiful people through the various jobs that I have held. The majority of my closest friendships began as work friends. Almost all of my "Florida friends", as I refer to them, came from working for Disney or when I worked at Fit2Run, the people who have impacted my life in such a major way. My work friend history goes way back to high school, at my first job in a local movie theater. I'll never forget the people who I went to movies with every Tuesday, the people who I met through work at 17 years old, but haven't stayed in contact with, because, well, it has been more than ten years and I moved away to college, then to Florida, and have never really been still for very long since graduating from high school. During college, there was Cold Stone, the Atrium, Bob Evans... then, I went to Florida. By spending so much of my time at work, I've made wonderful connections with people that I met on the job.

Now that I left Florida again, after my race weekend, now that I don't have plans to visit again in the immediate future, I'm almost grieving those friendships, the Florida friendships. I mean, I know that I will keep some of those people in my life, because I have been keeping in touch with many of them, some more frequently than others. That doesn't diminish the friendships and the connections that I made when they were an every day part of my life.

So, in my reflections over the past week, I've realized how much I might always miss those people, but that people, friends, acquaintances, are meant to come in and out of our lives for a reason, maybe to teach us something and to help us grow. In the last year, I have grown and changed so much. (yeah, I know, spoiler alert to my 2014 reflection blog.) I'm in the process of standing on my own two feet and of working towards making some big life decisions and figuring things out on my own. It has been a tough week, kind of grieving Florida again, thinking about everything that I had there, all of the wonderful memories that I did make. I am so fortunate to have come across so many wonderful people during my journey. I've begun to realize that it's okay that people come in and out of my life, that it will always be a part of living. I think that it is important to accept those friendships and to never forget them... Meeting beautiful people has changed who I am. I'm not the same Indiana girl who moved to Orlando in 2010, and that is thanks to the connections that I made, the friendships that I made, and the opportunities that I had.

I had to leave in order to move forward with my own life and with my journey, because it is my own, but that doesn't diminish the fact that I miss seeing some of my favorite people on a daily basis. Even if we don't talk every day, they've impacted me so deeply. I can't forget that and I won't.

I'm working towards following my dreams, in making life changes, doing big things, and part of that meant that I have to stand on my own two feet and follow my heart. That means that I'll always be meeting new people, that I'll be saying goodbye to people that I love again, but that's okay. I'll grieve for the person that I was, for the person that my friends helped me to become, but then I'll be able to move forward and continue to grow and change.

(and I will probably meet most of those friends at work, because that's what I do.)

Do I miss my Florida friends? Very much. I miss my Indiana friends, too, the ones who don't live here anymore. I miss people that I don't talk to regularly and people that I talk to every day. I believe that we have to let people come into our lives and change us. Everybody has potential to teach another person something important, to give them something valuable to take with them for the rest of their lives. That's something I will try to remember, even when it's tough, even when, sometimes, I wish I could scoop up all of my friends and take them with me on all of my adventures.
 
"People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. When you figure out which it is, you'll know what to do."
 
The best part, though, is that I have so many people that I get to send letters to. When I write my letters, maybe once a month-ish, I have four or five states that they get sent out to. I'm so fortunate in that sense.