Giver or Taker

Recently I have became aware of certain roles I play and things June does. I use to talk about this to my ex-husband all the time, because relationship was never a strength of his and yet it is a strong suit of mine.  But like anyone else, our daily lives get busy and I get lax on nurturing a friendship, building a relationship or reaching out to others because I need them! 

My definition of a friend is someone who cherishes the special moments and memories of
life with another person. A friend is a trustworthy companion.

Friendship is a relationship which takes time to build. There are many steps and stages to achieving a true friendship. A friendship for me is like planting a garden. It represents, devotion and time. It takes patience to grow a garden; first the seed is planted. The seed builds the foundation of a strong and stable plant. It has to be taken care of and watered daily.

Building a friendship is similar . One meets a person and plants the seed of friendship. The friendship builds and continues to grow stronger. It requires devotion of time and patience to achieve peak communication between the two companions. The struggle to keep a solid friendship includes many obstacles and hardships. But compromising, devotion,
willingness and the gift of time to endure is bound to payoff in the end.

I love this quote "It takes a long time to grow an old friendship". Friendship has its good and bad times. I hate when friendships just don't work and are destroyed by a silly disagreement or misunderstanding. Friends have the patience to deal with such
frustrations. The willingness and determination to get the relationship working again has to be a dual effort.  But along the way, I have learned there is always the Giver and the Taker as unfortunate as that may be! One person is always more willing to Compromise to rebuild the friendship!

That one person is me.   I am most often the first one to text, send a card, write a note, leave something at your front door, invite you for a glass of wine or a weekend away! If I sat back and waited for some people in life to initiate spending time together, we would never see each other!  Yet when I pick up the phone and call them, they are excited, say Yes and off we go to enjoy a wonderful time together.  It's just my role and I accept it!  Admittedly, yes it would be nice to be able to sit back and let someone else make the plans when all I had to say was YES!  Nice YES, but will I sit around and wait for that?  In most cases NO!  I don't sit around and wait - I LIVE LIFE!

More often than not, your friendship is important to me.  IT wouldn't be a friendship if there wasn't some sort of connection.  I have found myself pulling away recently from friendships which is for me, not the normal!  I think its because I find making friends easy. So sometimes when it's not, my reaction is to pull away and tell myself I have a full life with so many wonderful people it in, there's no time to waste on building these new friendships which is seemingly going to take some effort!

Believe me, I have my moments.  When life gets demanding, my friendships are the first to suffer.  But the good part of strong relationship is, the people in my life know who June is and they know the seasons of my life!  I have a girlfriend who says every year when we hit November, "There goes my friend for the next 4 months!  I'll see her again after the pageant!"  And although she's teasing, she's not far from the truth!  But you see it's those friends close to you, who know your passions that understand, learn about them, and embrace you for having one!  She's like so many other people in my life that "get it" and in the next 4 months she will call and ask me how pageant season is going.  Why?  Because she cares about whats important to me, the same way I feel about her!

I have relationships that go back to nursery school age.  We share bonds that can never be broken.  I left town and raised a family away from the valley for 25 years and when I came home, those relationships began like time had stopped still!  Now I travel back the other way and those friendships remain strong in my life.

Recently a very special person said to me, "It's not how often we get together, it's that we do get together and pick up right where we left off"!  How true that was and what a wonderful 2 hours we spend together!


I have a full life and am so blessed for all the wonderful people who fill it!  I know I should pick up the phone more, but my pageant daughters taught me to text and I have to admit it's easier when you are spread so thin!  I vow to get better my friends!

As for new relationships, yes I have stepped in and then stepped out, stepped in and stepped out!  I've given myself excuses for letting the friendship die, but then stepped back in to save it.  I think I step back in and put myself out there to build on a friendship, because I might miss something or someone important.  If God placed someone in my path, then don't I owe that person the gift of time and the chance to get to know them?

Part of that push and pull, step in and step out, yes and no tug of war comes from just getting tired of always being the one to take charge, so the push back on my part is stepping back and waiting to see if this friendship is worth having? Does the other person want this friendship to grow?  Friendships take time and I guess the question is DO I have time?  Is it worth my time?  And I'm going to be selfish and take a different spin on relationship!  Are you going to give the TIME to make it worth my time? Because if that is truly a yes, those that know me well, know that You can expect 120%