A Little Down & Out

I’ve been doing a little of this and that today – working on the calendar, doing some laundry, cleaning the kitchen, critter chores, answering some email – but I’m not moving very fast. I’m tired, tired, tired, and a little down and out.

The muscles in my back are misbehaving, hovering on the edge of spasm. Maybe it’s from being hunched over my desktop computer, peering into the screen, doing the fine detail work on pictures for the calendar. I wish I knew more about ergonomics. I’m sure I could improve upon my computer set-up and make it a more comfortable working area.

Maybe it’s ironing – that kind of back and forth motion always irritates the thoracic neuralgia. Maybe it’s… oh, who knows? It doesn’t really make much difference I guess.

I also got emails today from a couple of people I haven’t heard from in a long time. Nice people, but another sad reminder of how times have changed.

Let’s face it, when times are going well, you know a lot of people and think you have a lot of friends. It’s not until things change, and you have an illness, economic downturn, or some other problem, that you find out how many friends you really have. And it’s generally a whole lot less than you expected. Support you thought you could count on, well, all of a sudden it just isn’t there.

There’s a whole lot more fair-weather friends in the world than the real deal.

Thankfully, I’ve also got some great friends. Maybe it sounds corny, but I’m taking about the kind of friends who listen to you when you’re just having a bad day, to helping you through a divorce, kids in trouble, chronic illness, or whatever setback life deals out. They rejoice with you in good times, but also stick around when things go bad. They’re the ones who are still there when you need a true friend.

My thanks to those of you who are the real deal – you know who you are!