Friends

Now here is a perfect topic for a Friday afternoon. Something I think about often, my friends. You see they have been few and far between in my life. Let me explain. And I will try to do this without sounding like I am whining or complaining.

I have always had friends but not always "good" friends. Especially of the same sex. I am not the guy that hangs out with other guys. Never have been, never will be. Let's go back to grade school. I was usually one of the bigger (read husky--oh hell, read fat) kids in my class at St. Theresa's. (Catholic school meant the same 45 kids together in a class for eight straight years.) That meant the the guys who were cool did not pick me for their teams or did not really want to be the fat kid's friend. Therefore most of my friends in grade school were the sons of my parent's friends who were forced to play with me when my parents and their parents socialized. From those forced relationships a couple of friends developed. One of those I still have today as a peripheral friend that I see once in a 20 year period and send Christmas cards to. We were friends throughout high school and maybe a little better friends during our college years but still not a person I would ever confide in.

Most of my friends in high school (my close friends) were girls. Girls that I would have gladly had a romantic relationship with if they had been interested but I was willing to settle for their friendship since they weren't. One of them I still correspond with at Christmas and if I had to count my true friends in life, she would be in my top 10. I can say that I did not have a single close, male friend in high school. Like I said, I was never "one of the guys." Some of the guys let me hang around with them. Pretty cool guys too. Five of them had a pretty decent (best in our school) rock band and I was their roadie. I got to do that because my parents had a station wagon that I could borrow most of the time. But I believe that without that station wagon I would have been long gone no matter how many amps and guitars I was willing to carry. 

In college I met my first wife and that pretty much did it. I have always been the kind of person who would rather spend time with my significant other than with anyone else. I never understood the guys who would go out for beers, play cards, shoot pool or to bowl than be with their wives. I would rather be with my wife (yes, even my first wife) than with any of the guys I knew at the time. Conversation interested me more than sports or games. And conversation has always been kind of a girl thing, right? 

If I look back at my first marriage I can see that most of the people we socialized with were friends (and relatives) of my wife. Since she never liked any job I ever had that meant that she also didn't like any person I ever knew that came from those jobs. When I taught school we never associated with any of the other teachers which was probably just as much to do with the fact that she didn't like my job as the fact that I was the youngest teacher by almost 20 years at the school where I taught. And she was even younger. (I was 22, she 19.) And later when I moved on to Jostens she absolutely hated the entire company and anyone associated with it. So no friends there. This meant that our friends were really her friends and their husbands. Again, that was OK with me. None of those guys was I really in a hurry to hang out with. (Boy, I sound difficult, don't I?) My first wife was also very social so she had a bunch of friends, especially when our kids got into school and she started socializing with the parents of other kids in our kids classes.

During that time (and even now) I am still not that close of a friend with many of the folks from Jostens. I would say that I have made many friends over the years with Jostens but very few that I do much more than talk business with. I think part of the reason that deep relationships don't develop with the Jostens folks is that we are so separated. For the first 20 years of working with Jostens I didn't have another rep that lived closer than 75 miles from me. So we only saw each other four or five times a year or talked on the phone on a monthly basis. No major relationship develop that way. Now my best friend with Jostens lives only a few miles away and she and I talk almost every day. And even though we consider her and her husband our friends, they are the age of our kids so again, not folks we end up socializing with on a regular basis. 

When I met Kathleen I had some friends from Leavenworth. Notably, Jocelyn who was the person who told me I needed to get out there and meet someone and basically pushed me into the looking on the web for the person that I eventually found that became the love of my life. But Jocelyn (who married Craig within a week of when Kathleen and I got married) moved to China and eventually split with Craig and our relationship has kind of fallen away. Not for any particular reason, just that we don't see each other (even though she has returned to Western Washington) often. I don't think we have seen her since Christmas 2008. That is probably more our fault than hers and we need to make more of an effort to reconnect. If I was counting those 10 most important friends in my life, she would be on that list as well.

So, when Kathleen and I were first together, our friends were pretty much people I had known before I met her and the few Jostens folks that lived nearby or came to visit. And this was AOK with me. Kathleen and our kids were all I really needed at that point. I am that kind of person. A one person guy. And then we started cruising. 

Or I should say then we discovered Cruise Critic. If you don't know what I am talking about, Cruise Critic is an online community for those of us who love to travel on cruise ships. (No cruise ship cracks allowed here.) As everyone reading should know, I met Kathleen online, so why should it be any surprise that we would meet our best friends online as well. Because that's where we met them. 

In 2005 we got lucky enough to take a short, six day, repositioning cruise from Vancouver, BC to San Francisco. On the Cruise Critic thread for that cruise we met two other couples that we just clicked with. (That's our picture at the top of this post.) And these wonderful people have become our dearest friends. Even though two of them are clear across the country, we talk online on a daily basis either on the Cruise Critic boards or through e-mail and now on Twitter. And like my relationship with Kathleen, these long-distance relationships have become the best friendships I have ever had in my life. 

The two that aren't across the country have become our closest friends. They live about 120 miles north, just across the border. I can honestly say that other than Kathleen there is no one I would rather spend time with. We try to see them at least once a month but we are in heavy withdrawal because we haven't seen them since Thanksgiving weekend (but we will remedy that tomorrow when we meet them for lunch halfway between our two homes). We just seem to click with these two. They are so much like us (and yet not like us) and we love seeing them. They have introduced us to their family who have welcomed us like we were part of the family. A better bunch of kids you could not meet. 

Next month is going to be fantastic as the six of us will again be vacationing together. First the four of us from the NW will visit the other two at their home, do a road trip to Key West together and then all of us will sail away for a week in the Caribbean. We can't wait. And we know that they can't either. The Mates back together again. That's what friendship is all about. At least it is for me. 

Frustration and guilt

Oh boy, two of my favorite topics. 

I am frustrated today. Why, because the person I love the most in the world is sick and there is nothing I can do about it. As mentioned before, Kathleen has shingles. And they are painful and making her tired and worse. I want to do something to help her besides putting gas in her car or cooking dinner but since I am not a doctor there is nothing I can do beyond what I am doing. Frustration! 

Kathleen says that I am a typical "man" that has to solve every problem that comes his way. And that is pretty much true. When we have disagreements or arguments, I don't want to discuss things. I just want to know what I need to do to fix something and then to fix it. Cut to the core of the thing. You get sick, let's fix it. Maybe that's why I love my new dermatologist. His attitude is, you have psoriasis? Let's cure it. And he just keeps trying until he does. And he has. I am just about 99% psoriasis free.

Now to the guilt. I grew up Catholic. More Catholic than my brothers and sister. I went to 9 years of Catholic school. I was an altar boy, sang in the choir and was taught by nuns in 6 of those 9 years. Nothing instills guilt like a Catholic upbringing. And this coming week the guilt is going to set in. On Sunday I have to fly to Orlando to attend Jostens annual National Sales School. And it's bad enough when I go and leave Kathleen when she is well (OK, I admit it, we hate being away from each other) but when she is sick it will drive me nuts. I have already offered to cancel but she is adamant that she will be OK and that I am just being foolish. Of course she has always said that about my "stupid guilt" and she is probably right. She usually is, on most things. That's why I love her so much.

What to write tonight?

This blogging thing is going pretty well. But some nights I run into the problem of not knowing what to write about because I can't think of a topic, thus the blog's title. But today I could write about soooo many things, I don't know where to start. 

I had a great day today. I got a ton done. Lots of things got updated. More than 15 websites to be exact. Postcards got addressed, errands got run, e-mails were answered, Photoshop lessons were learned. Things connected. 

And as I told Kathleen at dinner tonight, I think that this blog is part of the reason that this year (I know, just 15 days so far) I have been so connected. A couple of years ago I read a great book on creativity, Creative Utopia. It listed 12 habits a person should develop in order to be more creative. To me, in the marketing business, creativity means productivity. One of the habits the author recommended was to journal. The idea is that the act of writing about your life focuses you on the things you are doing that you don't need to be doing and things you could do if you stopped doing the things you shouldn't be doing and started doing the things you should be doing. Did you follow that? You should (or you shouldn't). 

At any rate, I find that this is really helping me to focus on what I am doing each day. Not that I write about the daily minutiae but that it makes me think about what I have been doing as I write in the evening. Even more so than taking pictures did. This writing stuff is really working. 

I also want to mention that as of today, we have two new audience members. Yes, folks, I told someone else about this blog besides Kathleen. More about that tomorrow.

Watch out. It's going to get deep.

Self discipline. That's our topic for today. It always seems to be on my mind at New Years. Resolutions and that kind of thing. 

Let's start at the beginning. When I was young I knew that I had none. That was drummed into me at a very early age by my father who was very big on self discipline. I think he believed that since I didn't have any, he would provide it. And he did. A lot. Of course eventually I figured out that it is the basis of maturity but I am not sure when I figured that out. 

I think the first time I started to believe I was a failure at the self discipline game was in about second grade. Maybe earlier but that is what sticks out the most. I went to Catholic school (see, no wonder I feel guilty about everything) until I was in 9th grade. And at St. Theresa's the most important grade you could get on your report card was for Conduct. How you behaved. Starting in first grade they had a demerit system that you would get points added or subtracted from your total for a variety of reasons. Everyone started every year with 100 points. Talking in class lost you one point. Making fun of the teacher cost you 5 points. Fighting cost you 10 points. I didn't need the last two as I could rack up a great deal of points off from the first one. 

The grade you got for any subject was based on a 100 point scale. Once you got below 95 you got a B. Below 85 was C. Below 75 was a D and below 69 was an F. Getting in an F (or even a D) in my house (with a teacher for a Mom and a school administrator/teacher for a Dad) was tantamount to shooting my younger brother. And most of my grades in grade school weren't that bad. Mostly C's and B's. A few A's (I loved history and geography-still do) and a few D's (still hate math) but my only consistent F was in conduct. I am absolutely sure that I got my first one in 2nd grade. All of it from talking in class. As my father explained to me when he and my mother took me to the convent to meet with the principal (a nun) and my teacher (also a nun),"You just can't keep your mouth shut, can you?"

And that was the truth, I couldn't. Now, I am not sure how many Fs I got in conduct and I have no excuse for getting them but I know that from that point on I was a HUGE disappointment to my father. And it wasn't the F, it was the lack of self discipline. And I had other problem besides talking. I really couldn't stick to anything. This made me a very talkative, fat (I couldn't stop myself from eating or stick to exercising either) little boy. 

There were times that I remember I was disciplined by my parents into being a more self-disciplined person (like when I was banned from watching television until I learned all my times tables in 4th grade) but I could tell that it really bothered my dad that all my disciplined stemmed from him and not from within me. My father is the most self-disciplined person I have ever met. He had to be to live the life he lived. He pretty much gave his life over to my mom. You see my mother (who had survived polio as a teenager) had a stroke when I was about four years old. She was in the hospital for weeks. She barely survived it and came out of it without the use of her left arm and left leg. From that point on, my Dad's entire existence was to take care of her and to pay off her medical bills. And he did it. He gave his life to her. When she died three years ago in April, he turned to us kids and said, "Now what am I going to do?" He had been taking care of her for so long, he didn't know what else he was going to do.

So you can see what a disappointment I was to him. He had to discipline himself to give up things that he loved to take care of my mom and to take care of all of us financially and he could not understand why I wasn't more like him. 

The first time I can ever remember being self disciplined myself was in fifth grade. I had the best teacher I have ever had that year. Mrs. Helen Gerth. She is still to this day the greatest teacher I have ever known. I can't tell you why but I can tell you that she sat me down at the end of the first quarter of that year and told me that again I had talked my way into a D in conduct. But she was the first person to ever tell me that she believed that I could get an A. That I could actually shut up. That I could control myself. That if I just thought about it before I opened my big mouth, I could do it. And for the second quarter of that school year, I proved her right. When the end of the quarter rolled around I had 100 of those 100 points still on my chart. I look back on it now as one of the most important accomplishments of my life (even today) because it was the first time anyone had ever used positive motivation with me. Someone had believed in me. Someone who I respected and cared very much for. Unfortunately I could not say that about my father. Even today, I don't know if he thinks of me as a failure or a success. We talk often. Since my mom died, we talk weekly. But mostly it's about the weather or my niece, who he sees for breakfast once a week, never about anything really important. I have often wanted to ask him what he really thinks of me. Isn't that crazy? Being 56 years old and still looking for approval from my father. 

So back to the self discipline thing. That ties in with my paternal approval thing because his thinking that I had self discipline would be the highest compliment he could pay me. It would be the most approval he could give me. 

Do I think I am self disciplined? In some things, yes. In others no. So why are people that way? Let me give you an example. Why can I discipline myself to get up six days a week at 4:30 am to exercise for an hour but I can't stop myself from overeating? Why can I get myself to take a photo every day for an entire year but I can't get myself to give up watching as much TV as I watch? Why is self discipline so selective. 

I want to explore that and writing this down will probably only get me to think about it more. And you know what happens when I think about something? Nothing happens. Or sometimes it does.