At the risk of sounding like a broken record I want to state yet again how grateful I am to have wonderful friends and family in my life. Where would I be without them? So today I got a text from my daughter informing me that my voice mailbox was full so she couldn’t leave me a message when she called me. I must confess that my voice mailbox is full because I keep phone messages like some people keep old letters and greeting cards. At least one of the messages on my phone is over six years old. And I’m not even embarrassed by that fact. Nevertheless I knew I had to make room in my mailbox. So, in order to figure out what messages to delete, I had to listen to them all. You can imagine that this took some time, but through the entire process I heard all kinds of messages of personal and historical significance.
Some of the calls were funny–various members of my family singing happy birthday to me and their laughing acknowledgment of their lack of musical talent, my son recounting some really cool happenings with people he was working on a project with, my daughter congratulating me on getting a new job. Others were poignant–a friend struggling through and trying to reconcile a difficult relationship, a parent concerned about a child who was having problems. All of these little stories recorded in 30 second, 90 second, three minute messages. They are little snapshots of life, spoken, sung, cried in the voices of people I know and love reminding me yet again how fortunate I am to have people in my life who love, support, and care for me and for each other.
One of my relatives who is having a difficult time at work has been able to reach out to a number of different ones of us for assistance and guidance in navigating the struggles, developing approaches and strategies that will hopefully lead to a clear and positive outcome. It’s great to be on the receiving end, but even better to be on the giving side. My family has stepped up in so many ways to help me over the past two years, it feels really good for me to be finally turning a corner and slowly moving into a position to be able to help others. I haven’t quite gotten there yet in terms of finances, but I’m definitely ready to commit time and energy to the cause. Somehow as I continue the process of getting acclimated to my new surroundings I’ll be able to do even more.
Yesterday I wrote about how I believe people hunger for genuine connection with other people. There are people who ache with loneliness and isolation, some of whom are literally right around us: coworkers and colleagues, the neighbors across the street, the people at the train station, sometimes people in our own families. While I am grateful to have strong, connected relationships with many in my family and friends scattered across the country, I think about people who are not fortunate to have the and where I can I reach out and connect with the people around me. Either directly or by proxy, I am reaching out to people around me and as best I can offering connection, even if only briefly. And thus supported, they perhaps turn around and reach out to someone else in a “pay it forward” kind of way.
Listening to all those old voicemail messages today reminded me that I am loved and that I give love. It really doesn’t get much better than that.
