I think I'm saying status doesn't matter.

I'm not sure how to write this. It's also a post I started months ago, when something happened to a friend that triggered this mess of words. I decided to leave it alone for a while. And now that I haven't blogged in seventeen years, it's probably going to be read by...myself. Ha. :) Onward.

Learning to be grateful for whatever you have in life. 

Yes. 

This is a thing we are all at least trying to do.

Eventually, we recognize the grass isn't always greener...that there are dying grass patches in everyone's field at some point or another. No matter who you are, no matter what you have in life...there are just going to be tough days.

And what do you need when you wanna punch the day in the face?

• Sometimes I go run it out. I run and run until I can't run anymore, and then I remember I still have to run back to where I started. :) Or sometimes it's whatever the favorite cardio stress pounder is...sometimes having Jillian Michaels yell at me about punching harder as I do so REALLY does make me feel better. Knock her all you want. I appreciate her. 

• If there's a piano handy, I sit down with a pile of books and just play them all. I'm not a fantastic pianist by any means, and I'm definitely not playing for a crowd...but sometimes I just need to be alone in a room with a piano, and I'll emerge an hour later a completely new person. It makes me breathe easier just thinking about it.

• Or sometimes I just need serious chocolate. In most any form.

• A nap. Those help. You know, or praying...or reading the scriptures for a minute, or a general conference talk. Something to just help it fade. 

• Or a friend. Someone who will do whatever you need...maybe just listen while you cry it out, or talk about it so you can hear if your frustrations make sense or not. Or sometimes? (this is my favorite one) You might just need a friend to let you lay your head on their lap while they play with your hair and you watch something requiring no thinking whatsoever, and there's no talking at all. Just letting life simmer down without speaking.

Sometimes you just need a friend.

I remember one particular day as a sophomore in high school. I had different groups of friends. Younger friends, older friends, "popular" friends, "nerdy" friends, choir friends, church friends, and that one guy I only talked to/saw in History, but that whole hour we laughed about stuff (I mean learned) the teacher said. But one day, a girl walked up to me and informed me my friends were in "too many groups." "You have to pick one," she said, with the ultimate superiority. I remember standing there, wondering who died and made her queen. I told her I didn't agree, and that I liked having friends in all different "groups." Good heavens.

I'm sorry to disappoint you, dear high school girl, but I still haven't changed. It's the one thing since high school I'm glad hasn't changed. ;) I have friends in many different walks of life, as I'm sure most other...grown ups...do. Or at least I hope so.

My friends are all very different from each other. Friends who like country, friends who hate country, friends who like sports, friends who do nottttt - friends who are single, and friends who are oh so married.

Let's focus on this one for a moment. Just because I'm single doesn't mean I only have single friends, or that I only talk to my single friends about my "single" problems. Sometimes my favorite person to talk to is a friend who does not have the exact replica of my life.

I remember when friends started getting married. It was weird. :) Then it got frustrating/depressing. Eventually, though, it stopped bothering me altogether. I finally reached a day when I realized what I was doing, and gave myself a well-deserved lecture. It went something like this:

Just because someone has something you don't have doesn't make you the martyr of their situation, and therefore grant you rights to pound them to the ground for having trials while they stand in possession of your holy grail.

Stop yearning for everything other than what you have. Life your  life, and be glad of it! Complain about it when you need to, but then snap out of it, and cowboy up. Or girl, depending on the situation. ;)  Stop coming down on every mother of multiple children for having a moment when she doesn't want to get up at 4 a.m. with a screaming child, or who can't take the thought of seeing another dirty diaper. So she'd give her right arm to go get a pedi with her girlfriends and you'd simultaneously give your right arm for that screaming baby...dirty diapers and all.

Don't worry, that DeeAura lecture took place years ago...not yesterday. ;) And I'm still glad I have friends who share my interests or life situation JUST as I am equally glad to have friends with complete opposites of these things. It helps me feel slightly less crazy when needed, and pulls me out of my personal validation traps when needed.