Eight Simple thoughts on Friendship

I didn’t ride this past weekend. It wasn’t because the weather was wet or falling temperatures, anyone who knows me knows that doesn’t stop me. Instead, I chose to spend over twenty hours in a car to drive to North Carolina. I was only a little reluctant about the long trek, mostly because I wouldn’t get to lay my head on a pillow until 3 a.m. The kiddo’s big week at school was this weekend, too. She was part of the crew for the major production. So I stayed up late Thursday night to see Beauty and the Beast, the musical, got up early to go to work Friday, stayed till after 4 o’clock, and finally got on the road about 5:30 p.m.

http://martimocahbee.com/

http://martimocahbee.com/

This all came to pass because a week or so go I was hanging with a friend of mine, you have met her in previous posts - her nickname is Trekkie. In a whim of spontaneity, she and I decided we would take this road trip. I had seen a Facebook post that one of our mutual friends was going to be showing her pottery at the Carolina Designer Craftsmen Guild. Marti Mocahbee is her name and we had not seen her for fifteen years or more. (If you like pottery, or are in the market for a beautiful, handmade piece, be sure to look her up HERE.)

I am not going to tell you all the details about our trip, driving from Cincinnati to Raleigh all night long is a not-so-fun adventure. November means the sun sets early and the deer are very active on the dark, rural highways. Have you ever driven along a highway and seen eyes reflecting back at you from the side? Creepy!!!

Rather, I want to tell you my thoughts on friendship and maybe impart some genuine thoughtfulness. 

Now for The Reluctant Cyclist’s thoughts on Friendship:

1.   Friends are a priority.
2. If for some reason you think about an old friend, take that to mean you are supposed to reconnect. Whether something happens that makes you think of them, you hear their name mentioned somewhere, or you see an advertisement that they will be exhibiting at a craftsman’s guild 500 miles away, it is a sign. 
3. You don’t necessarily need to drive 500 miles, a simple phone call may be sufficient, but there’s nothing quite like being there.
4. When those old friends are all women the conversation will eventually be about hot flashes.
5.  Real friends may change addresses, partners, or hair styles, but they never really change. We all have short hair now, two of us have a different spouse, one of us is a grandma, and we all live in different houses than we did when we met. But the conversation picks up right where it left off, usually about the other neighbors from the old street.
6. It’s a good idea for old friends to start new traditions.
7. You may never know the reason you met, but something would be missing had you never met. If we would not have moved onto Worthington Ave. way back when we would not have known the quirky circle of friends who lived there. And, not only would we have missed out, but our kids would have never known the “best times” of growing up.
8.  Middle-aged women driving long distances need to make many stops.

Now that I’ve fed you all my cheesy thoughts on friendship, the true test came as Trekkie and I turned for home. We were once again confined to the interior of a Subaru Crosstrek for 500 miles. 

250 channels on the satellite radio can’t thwart the monotony of North Carolina to Ohio. The dilemma was that we started to eat and drink out of boredom. Of course the more we drank the more we had to stop. And then, true story – we thought maybe listening to a football game would help the time pass. In our effort to find the New York Giants game on the radio we missed our turn onto the AA Highway in Kentucky and added nearly an hour to an already excruciating drive. We never found the game and finished the drive listening to “Forensic Files” on HLN.

Now, I guess Trekkie and I need to head to the west coast…

#martimocahbeepottery #AAHighway #friendship #trekkie #thereluctantcyclist