Thinking things through

So often I want to write, and yet nothing comes out. Consider this post a drain cleaner of sorts, to get things moving.

I'm enjoying my job. Second shift makes things interesting schedule wise; actually, it fills up my calendar Monday through Friday. I've decided to not work Saturdays, unless we are crazy busy and need to get the work out. It was too much to work five nights a week, and then give up 5 hours during the middle of my Saturday as well. Financially, we'll be ok; I made sure to run the numbers several times before I committed to that decision.

I've been able to some people who's face I had been missing lately: my friend John and his wife Jen at dinner Saturday night; the guys in my Men's group at church that meets Saturday mornings; my wife.

I'm finding that I've been something of a nomad for many years. I don't feel particularly connected to almost anyone in my high school class since I moved into town my freshman year. I have a few people I still keep in touch with, but by in large, it's the people I went to grade school and junior high that I feel closer to, and even then, I don't feel terribly close to many of them.

I find it ironic that as much of a social person as I am, I'm horrible at keeping in touch with people I consider friends. It's not really that hard to shoot off a quick email, Facebook message, text, carrier pigeon....whatever. I just don't do it for some reason. I have people I hold dear to my heart and I haven't tried to contact them.

Family's different. I'm generally in touch with my parents and my sister. With my Mom and sister, it's generally text tag or phone calls after a text that says "you busy?" With Dad, it's usually a phone call or text saying "hey, we're staying at your house, ok?" with many hands of Shanghai Rummy played.

I have my Drinking Right friends, but even that was a monthly "hey, how's it going" for most of them.

Do I simply gloss over people and assume friendship, or do I isolate and insulate myself without really intending to?

There was a time in my life, about 10 years ago, when we had a group of young adults at church, in a group call The Gathering. I seem to recall about 20 of us that generally hung out together outside of our Tuesday night meeting. Catching movies, grabbing coffee....just hanging out. I miss that time so much at times it aches.

Human Resources

I was having dinner with an acquaintance recently, and he said something that made me think.

"You'd think with something as finite a resource, we'd be more likely to take care of it"

Now, he was actually talking about silverware, as the establishment we were at had given us plasticware, instead of silverware, for our eat in meal.

However, I mulled over his statement for a while, and even commented back to him about how right he was on an even bigger scale.

We tend to take other people for granted. We used to them being there, either because, as in the case of family, they've always been there, or in the case of friends, it seems that despite our faults, they stick by us.

But what happens when we use up that human resource, when we push the limits of grace, love and patience? Should we be surprised when the person we've used gets fed up and wants no more? Is it simply a matter of "hey, dummy, you need to stop" or is it a case of someone who will leave us because we've abused the resource, much like rubbing the lamp too many times and hoping the genie will fix it.

I know that I can be a difficult person to deal with; I'm loud, outspoken, often obnoxious, opinionated, and sometimes brash and bullheaded. Have I taken inventory on the stores of grace, love and patience with those in my life? What have I done to replenish those stores, so that in some future event, I may need extra grace, love and patience dealt my way?