Last month I took some time off writing to focus on our move! We just moved end of April to a sleepy seaside town filled with lots of friendly retired folks. Within the first three days, we already knew the neighborhood gossip, got invited to the ladies’ weekday 8 am walking group, the neighborhood church potluck and Bible study, and met several neighbors.
Sophie, a Chinese widow who runs a language school, lives behind us, paid my kids $1 to weed her yard, and comes over unannounced with rhubarb from her garden.
I love neighbors who come over unannounced. Those are my favorite kinds of neighbors.
Because I have her rhubarb, I feel the need to make her a rhubarb cake to show her my appreciation. Do I ever buy rhubarb? Have I ever made anything with rhubarb? No.
But do I have rhubarb cake in my oven currently? I do. It made me think, is life just a series of kindnesses and obligatory gestures we end up calling friendships because deep down we know if we don’t stay connected to each other, we will go crazy?
In an age when Facebook likes have replaced tea at our neighbor’s kitchen counters, I will try my hardest to preserve the IRL friendships.
I know it’s a luxury not many can indulge in, but my goal to see a friend every day is usually the highlight of my days. I’ve watched a woman focus solely on her husband and family her entire life, and friends, it is not enough.
I don’t know if the two are correlated but that woman got a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s in her early 60s. No friends ever came over. No unannounced neighbors ever stopped by.
Indeed it may be correlated, as research shows that the number one predictor of longevity has less to do with lifestyle choices and more to do with relationships, community, and connectedness.
Friendships and strong bonds make us happier and help us live longer. I don’t know all the science behind it, but when I have spent time with a good friend/s, it fills my soul like nothing else in the world.
I was hiking with a friend one day who is a world traveler. She told me, “I just want to spend my life looking at beautiful things.” I always see her face light up when she talks about her adventures. I can’t relate to this love of travel, but I can relate to finding that thing, or those things that make you just come alive. Since then I’ve been asking myself the same question. What do I want to spend my life doing? And here’s what Ive come up with.
I want to spend my life making and deepening friendships, moving my body, writing about things that make people’s lives better, and making beautiful spaces.
What do you want to spend your life doing?
One of my favorite recent quotes is commonly attributed to Irenaeus, an early Christian theologian and bishop of Lyons.
The best-known version is:
“The glory of God is a human being fully alive.”
Maybe that’s the essence of this question -what do you want to spend your life doing. So, what makes you feel like you’re fully alive?? I’d love to know!