Of all the things on all the channels on the “regular” cable package we have, I am watching Friends on Netflix again. It’s funny, when Friends came out, I was just too young and busy to watch it. Now 20 years later, I would rather watch it than anything else. Even though it came out in the mid-90’s, it really is the kind of show that does not age a lot except for the fact that there were high-waisted jeans and people are not texting on there 24/7.

Speaking about friends, last night I stayed over at an older family friend’s house last night. She is moving further south because she has lived the upscale D.C. life and it is not pretty. She dated someone who was so important, that she had to have top-level security clearance to live with him. The funny thing, or the sad thing is that once she decided she did not want to be with this controlling wealthy man anymore, the D.C. social scene dropped her like a hot potato.

I have never been a part of that scene because I have never had money. I mean I have enough to pay rent and utilities and insurance and the basics, but that is the gist of it. I am not a part of the social scene. I have been to the Kennedy Center and I have been to Capital Grille and to some of the “high-post” areas that the wealthy go to. But unless I win the lottery or some sort of lawsuit, I doubt that I will rub elbows with any of these a-holes anytime soon.

After hearing how little she trusts people now and how she doesn’t have people to hang with anymore, makes me view D.C. differently, but life in general. It seems that as I listened to many things that have happened in her life, that the overall theme is that people cannot be trusted.

I mean I have made some real friendships here. I do not talk to friends everyday, because I and they are just so busy with our kids and day-to-day activities. I have grown comfortable in my solitude to a degree. My daughter is in the city right now, right after leaving a sleepover,and as much as i don’t want to talk some mornings and like to “do me”, it sure is an empty home without her.

I don’t want to be so non-trusting. I do teach my child that you can’t put yourself out there for people all of the time. I also tell her that you can’t be so readily available to people all of the time. But I don’t want to have stories to share with her that always revolve around me getting screwed over, or being left alone. I want to teach her that life is beautiful, with let-downs of course. But that there great people and opportunities out there.

I want to impart wisdom to my child that does not make her so weary and wary of life and of people that she goes around afraid and unwilling to take risks. I want her to truly realize the life that she has been given is a gift from God.

Many of us do not live up to the potential that we could. Many of us do not reach for the stars and go for what we dream of. But, even if one hasn’t grown up to be whom they hoped to be, there is always time to do something different or new. I know that it is cliché’ to say this, but learn a language, travel, join a book club, start a new hobby. These things are so simplistic, but can change one’s life in great ways. I truly think that these things can be the difference between living a life with bitter memories, or living a life full of creating new ones with positive experiences and positive people.

Stay warm everyone. It is freezing in D.C.

Simply~

Dee