52 New Friends

There are old souls that inhabit the earth, beings of youth who exhibit such natural wisdom that one starts to wonder if they really even fit in this generation of selfies and YouTube makeup tutorials.   I met Sarah by working with a local non-profit.   She is the type of unyielding dependable that you never have to worry about anything being left undone.   She’s a little bit of ‘Little House on the Prairie’ with her long, blond hair and her natural heart-shaped face.   Her voice is soft.   Her eyes are warm.   She’s the type of person you instantly feel you have known for years. You’d think she was from the Midwest from that description but Sarah actually grew up near Buffalo, New York, surrounded by farms for as far as the eye could see.   She loved to ride horses.   In fact, for a while, she considered becoming a horse trainer but she never had a horse of her own.   She was raised by a single mom and horses are expensive.   ...

Dear Friends, I need to catch you up on all that has happened over the last month since my last posting.   You may have thought I have given up on the idea of making 52 new friends this year.   That could not be farther from the truth.   But here’s what I have learned:   As I get deeper and deeper into this process, I find people are reluctant to sit down with me.   I’ve got a backlog six or seven deep of women who liked the idea enough to agree to sit down with me, but, for one reason or another, have not made the time to do it.   Part of me has been in mourning over it because how sad is our society that people are so overtaxed that they don’t even have time to schedule in one hour to talk about themselves and meet a new friend.   Or maybe the idea of having someone write about them is too daunting?   Or maybe they just don’t want to be my friend and don’t know how to tell me?   Or maybe something else is holding them back?   ...