Bunny Day ponderings
This is my first holiday away from my family. It’s strange but OK, but I am missing them today.
But when I think about it, my family is all around the world. The only blood relatives I have are my mom and grandfather, as well as a handful of cousins in Ohio and Pittsburgh, but I’m not really close to any of them. I find that I am closer to people in the Blogosphere — people I’ve never even met — than I am to my extended family. So family isn’t always what you’re born with, but what you find and keep.
I suppose I have risked alienating a few of my nearest and dearest friends with my recent posting on my close friendship with Shan, and the reaction from some wasn’t something I really saw coming. For that, I have to apologize, because I never intended to discount the special relationships that I have with so many others. Part of what even inspired that post was the fact that she, knowing I’d be alone on Easter Sunday, refused to let me spend the day by myself. And even as I contemplate moving — whether this fall or even next year — I realize that I can’t go too far away from Alexandria, because I love having her only two streets away.
I don’t write much about her, even though we are together seven days a week, and that was my one homage to the friendship we’ve worked so hard to build … one of the few good things that has resulted from a strenuous workplace environment that drains the life from both of us on too many occasions.
But, admittedly, I was remiss in not acknowledging quite a few people who willingly stay in my realm of insanity and, for some reason, actually love being a part of my world — even when they’re halfway across the physical world from me.
So today, millions of Christians are celebrating rebirth and renewal in the religious sense, and today, I will honor that spirit of renewal in my own aesthetic sense. Today I remind myself that, when I feel lost and confused and out-of-control, I have support systems that reach farther and so much deeper than the boundaries of my cell phone’s Nationwide Network. And not just farther, but closer as well. It’s easy, when you’re a new kid in a new city that’s three times the size of your homeland, to feel alone and even detached from the support systems you’d previously had in place. And even though almost everyone you love is in different ZIP Codes, area codes and even country codes, that doesn’t change the fact that you all love each other just as much as you did when you were all still living in the same cities, crying on the same pillows and laughing in the same bars together.
And I meant what I said before about relationships being fixable, if there was something there worth saving in the first place. We all say and do things that will hurt people in ways we never anticipated, but the most honest of intentions will always shine through. We hope, anyway. 🙂
So I have some hard work to do in this area, and I’m sure a lot of others are realizing the same thing. At any rate, Happy Bunny Day, Passover, Easter, Hangover … whatever it is you’re celebrating today or this month, and thank you for attending the lesson of today’s sermon, “Appreciate What You Have … And Let Everyone Know It.”