My blog-iversary just passed!  I can’t believe I have been writing here for a year!  When I started this blog, I wasn’t exactly sure what I was doing.  I guess I’m still not totally sure what I am doing, but I do know that I enjoy it.  At first, it was a way for me to document my journey, hoping that someday someone would find it of use.   I wanted to show my son that there are ways to push past fears and insecurities.  That life can be what you make of it.

While my main purpose remains in tact, it has helped me push myself out of my comfort zone in many ways.  Sometimes, when I write, I try not to think about anyone that might read it.  I want to just put it out there and hope it’s enjoyable or entertaining in some way.  I know that some posts are irrelevant or boring to folks that might read them, but I don’t care.  I love posting and I know that for every couple of boring ones out there, there has been a post that someone has told me helped them in some way or another.  Sometimes it’s a small inspiration, other times it’s just the fact that they now know they are not alone, which is priceless.

One of the things I still struggle with, is when I will be ready to actually put effort into sharing it.  For years, I was a social media voyeur.  I rarely posted, but loved to read through posts from other people who inspired me in some way or another.  For maybe just under a year now, I have been trying to become more present in social media.  I post workouts and event photos to Instagram and Facebook, but I do so on my SoPossible account for the most part and still don’t put a ton out there on my personal page.  I am also hesitant to push my SoPossible page to Facebook friends.  The reason?  Well, they aren’t really my friends.  I have always been very guarded with who I consider an actual friend.  In the past, I would never connect on social media with people I worked with.  Why would I?  They really aren’t friends, right?  I am slowly learning that the answer to that question is wrong.  They can be real friends, if I choose to let them be.  For the longest time, I was so guarded in who I let into my life, that I lost the ability to recognize that there are very different types of friendships out there.

My son has always been inspirational to me, but in the last year he has taught me so many things its hard to quantify, but one of the most important lessons has been about friendship.  This year, my son made friends with a boy who was somewhat disliked by the other kids.  My son was essentially told by his class, that being friends with this boy was social suicide and he would not have any other friends.  He would be foregoing friendship with a possible 20 or so kids, for the friendship of this one kid.  We discussed it and length and while it was a struggle for him, he said he knew in his heart he was meant to be this kid’s friend.  He paid the price at the beginning of the year.  He was lumped into the outcast role with this other kid, but slowly other kids started to realize that my son is awesome.  One boy even attempted to bribe him with candy to please stop socializing with the other kid and be friends with everyone else.  My son told this boy that there was no need for candy.  He was sticking by his friend but was available to be everyone else’s friend too.  By the end of the year, not only had my son had become friends with the entire class, he had bridged the gap and created a bond between the other students and the boy they had originally shunned.

If you ask my son who his best friend is, he will tell you he has a few.  One could be his best friend for gaming, another for skate board tips, etc.  I thought about that and realized that he’s got this friendship thing down.  He doesn’t have to identify a single kid to be his one and only best friend, at least right now.  He’s content with having several friendships and being engaged with lots of different kids in different situations. We can learn a lot from kids, and he has taught me a lot.  I have been way too guarded.  I am not sure why, but I am starting to see that I have had a misconception of friendship for way too long.  I guess I felt like I wouldn’t be a good enough friend to someone.  I mean, as it is, I don’t spend enough time with some of my family and friends I have had for years.  Why make new ones and feel bad about not giving them enough time too?  The funny thing is, that everyone is in the same situation!  No one has enough time for everyone they care about.  I have met some amazing people in the last month or so and I look forward to the different types of friendships that may come out of it.   I may eventually even share this blog with some of them, hoping that in some way it may help someone else.

I hope that as the years progress, my son maintains that freedom in friendship.  I hope that he can look at this blog and see that he taught his ol’ Mama something.  That after all these years, there is always more to learn.  I hope he sees that through all these crazy struggles with swimming, biking, running and life, I still have a smile on my face a mile wide.  I want him to see that no matter what comes, what scares me, or what makes me fall….I will always stick the landing!