The 100 Friends and Family You Never Knew You Had...

When my sister and I were very little (toddler and baby), my mother drove us to New York State from a little town in Ohio.  We lived in this tiny little yellow apartment in Westchester, then a green one, and then our very own house!  I remember bolting up the stairs in the house in order to lay claim to the room at the top of the stairs.  Back then, privacy on the phone was acquired by snaking an extension of the phone cord up and around the stairs, and then shutting the door.  We thought we were super-smart to think up such a strategy (not realizing that little girls have been trying that since the sixties...).

It was wonderful to grow up near New York City.  Some of my friends are glad not to be in White Plains, but I get nostalgic.  It wasn't at all close to relatives or family friends---at least at first.  However, it was a wonderful, creative and exciting place to call home.

We're in Ohio this weekend for the second/final funeral for my grandmother.  It has been an exhausting yet memorable experience.  I've written a few postcards during the moments of down time in between memorial events.  We've spent a lot of time preparing and updating supplies for each event.  My grandmother is worth every hour spent on these activities.  She's worth a lot more than that. 

One of the reasons that our previous Ohioan experience (when I was a baby and not yet old enough to understand the implications of life here versus life in New York State) has come to mind this evening is that we are always so glad to see our extended families out here.  We won't really have a reason to come back to my grandmother's home-town after this trip.  I've seen and met a lot of people that either met me when I was a baby, or have never met me at all.  I've been called by my mother's name repeatedly because I look just like she did at my age (and younger).  A part of me will always regret that our family moved from this state to another, because the more extended the family member, the less likely it is that we have met or will meet.

The take-away from this experience is clear--one should take every opportunity to know the people in their lives, even on the periphery.  However exhausting this is to an Introvert in the short term, the long term benefits of friendship and family outweigh the negatives by far.