A Friend Reminder

There have been a lot of happenings lately reminding me of the importance and the impact of my friends.

One of those things has been FaceBook. Yes, I'm well aware that there is a much cooler social networking service now called VIRB (http://www.virb.com) but I'm a recent facebook convert and I'm not quite ready to move!

(EDIT: I've got plenty of invites to virb - but I think it's open now, so you can sign up without an invite . . .if you need one or want one, just post a comment.)

In any case, it's been neat and encouraging for me (who has never thought of himself as having an abundance of friends . . . notice I'm not quite saying "loser" here, more that I have few, but very significant friends . . . . you may say loser if you wish) to see the connections that have been made over the years, even just in terms of acquaintances.

The other is that I just had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with some of those very significant friends that Kristy and I love dearly and simply have not gotten to see much of in the past 14 months or so. In spite of the distance, the significance has not faded; it's grown stronger. That's amazing to me.

I've never thought of myself as needing my friends to be present. If you know me, you probably know that I have an awful tendency to want to do things myself my way and to transform into a hermit in the face of stress - retreating to various locations of solitude.

This weekend I realized that for one of the only times in recent memory that I had a joy that has been missing for a long time . . . I wonder how long this fix will sustain me.

Don't know if it's the lack of sleep or the (2 month old) lack of caffeine talking, but . . . I think there's something in my eye.

Grace,

Des