Friends

Home Sweet Sweet Home

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I haven’t been around here for a while. I’m sure that you figured out that it’s nothing you said or did, it’s more the fact that we’ve been moving house.

We are now proud co-owners, with the bank, of our lovely new home. Well, it’s new to us. It’s actually an eight year old home but it’s so much nicer than the home we sold. And the best part? It already feels like home. In fact, it felt like home almost as soon as we got here last Wednesday.

We are surrounded by boxes and our days have been filled with wondering what goes best where. We’ve also had a few friends and family members dropping in to see our new place. The busyness is sure to continue for quite a while. I had last week off work to help make the move happen and this week off work to try and get things in some kind of order. We’re discovering all the things that don’t quite suit our style of living and making plans to make the minor changes required to have it even more feel like ‘our place’.

The new home is within walking distance to the school that Emily and James are attending. Up until now, Pauline had been driving around 130 km a day to drop them off in the morning then to go back and pick them up in the afternoon. We had planned this move last year and so Emily and James started at their new school in February, at the beginning of the new school year. We had imagined that Pauline might have a few weeks of driving that distance. We never imagined that it would be over half a year.

It’s so very good to finally be here and settling in.

I certainly couldn’t write this post without acknowledging the fact that so many people helped make this happen. I won’t start mentioning names because I’m sure to forget someone. I’ll just say that from our real estate agent to family members, friends from our old church, friends from our new church and various other dear friends, this whole process has been an incredible team effort. Those who have helped may never know just how much we have appreciated their kindness and extreme generosity.

We also need to thank God for teaching us so much about patience and for providing the right home at exactly the right time.

It’s good to be home.

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Does Marriage Change Friendships?

Feb 28th, 2008

by Rodney Olsen.

21 comments

Steve left an interesting comment on the previous post regarding friendship. I’m hoping that we can get a discussion going to provide a few answers.

In part, this is what he had to say:

Here’s a question I battle with everyday. I could be generalising here too; Why do single friends phone and come over your place every weekend and then once they get married, you never hear from them again.

Does marriage make life too busy? Does your partner refuse you to still have your single friends?

Steve was part of the church I grew up in many years ago. It’s been a long while since we’ve caught up.

I left a lengthy reply in the comments section of the last post but I though it’d be worth getting some other perspectives? Are you a married person who no longer hangs out with your single friends or a single person who is losing married friends? Have you found that things stayed pretty much the same after marriage?

Here are some of the thoughts I shared in my reply.

Relationships certainly do change after marriage. I know that in some relationships one or the other partner will ‘forbid’ their other half from getting together with some of their friends. I’d hate to be in such a relationship. I would never dictate such things to Pauline and she would never dictate such things to me.

I think it’s right that a greater emphasis is placed onto building the marriage partnership than on other friendships. Things can’t remain the same forever. On the other hand I think it’s wrong to become so insular in a marriage relationship that you break long term friendships. Even married couples need to remain as part of a wider community.

Friendships are based on a lot of things including shared interests and proximity.

I think marriage does change your interests somewhat, even more so when you add children into the mix. A single person will often have different interests to a married person.

As for proximity, Pauline and I are now living across the other side of the city from where we used to live so there are many people, both married and single, that we no longer see as often.

I think that friendships begin, change and end for a variety of reasons. We all go through various ‘seasons’ in our lives. Things change, we move on.

I’d also have to say that it’s not all down to those who are married. It goes both ways. A number of our single friends stopped staying in touch after we married. While scheduling is sometimes an issue we’ve never said ‘no’ to an invitation to get together with a single friend.

So what do you think? Have you felt hurt when a friend has moved to a different phase of their life? Have you noticed this phenomenon in your own life?

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Friends or Acquaintances

Feb 27th, 2008

by Rodney Olsen.

4 comments

You’ve got dozens of them on Facebook and a bunch of other ‘networking’ sites and applications … but are they really friends?

A great post today from Seth Godin titled “That guy who saved my life” defining the difference between true friends and the ‘friends’ we seem to collect online.

I would have to admit that there are many people who I’ve only ever ‘met’ online who I consider as friends. They’re the sort of people that I’d love to sit down with at a local cafe to enjoy a coffee and a couple of hours chatting. I like to think that there’s a sense of connection that comes out of sharing part of our lives online.

I’ve had the privilege of meeting some of those friends through blogger meetups and while travelling. I’ve been more than pleased to catch up with a few bloggers who have been visiting Perth and it was great to meet some bloggers in Sydney and Melbourne when we were there about 18 months ago. In fact, one of my major dissapointments of that holiday was that there were a couple of people whose schedules meant that we never got to meet face to face.

Having said that, I understand what Seth is saying and that there will always be those who are closer as friends than others. I suppose we sometimes need to put our friendships in perspective and ensure that those close to us in the ‘real world’ aren’t missing out on our time.

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Good … Thanks

Feb 20th, 2008

by Rodney Olsen.

8 comments

I’m a liar. I lie to people I don’t even know.

I dropped in at the local supermarket this afternoon. After grabbing what I needed I headed for the checkout.

The young lady serving me was very pleasant and gave me the pre-programmed greeting, “Hello, how are you today?” “Good thanks.” I said.

I lied.

Pauline, Emily, James and I have been feeling rather below average this week. Neither of the kids have been to school this week and Pauline has been feeling pretty dreadful. I’m not so good but I’ve managed to keep going and sound cheery on the radio. James is now much better, I think I’m improving, but the ladies are still suffering.

It’s an interesting phenomenon isn’t it? People can ask us how we are and unless they’re someone close we generally just ignore the facts and tell them that we’re fine. We already know that the question comes out of politeness rather than for concern for our welfare and wellbeing.

I wonder how it would have been if I’d answered truthfully. “Well, now that you ask, I’ve got a bad headache, I’m rather achy and as for my ….. ” (I’ll spare you the rest of the details.)

In the wider community it’s probably wise that we don’t burden everyone with how we’re really doing but I suppose the question is, do we have people in our lives who ask how we are and really means it? I love having people who are close enough to me to ask how I’m doing and really want to know. It’s good to know that there are people who really want to share the good and bad of life with us.

The next question of course is are we offering that kind of listening ear to others? I knew right away that the shop assistant didn’t really want to hear how I was and I’m quite sure that most of us know when “good thanks” is appropriate and when it’s right to share a bit more.

I certainly hope that people know that when I ask them how they are, that they can share how life is really going for them.