Loved ones…Maggie and me

My dear friend Maggie is currently visiting us. We are blessed to have her here for three weeks, there is one week left.

Our friendship goes back over 30 years. We met as adult married women when we both started our new jobs at the Clerk’s Office in Tampa. We didn’t grow up together. We were not raised in the same culture or even the same region of the country. Work habits, likes, hobbies, lifestyle, and fashion sense are all different. Many who know each of us and see our friendship often ask, “How are  you two friends?”

Photo credit: Dr. Donald T. Stein

Love, by one definition, is the emotional pleasure one feels when witnessing the goodness and virtue of another human being. Maggie and I are bonded by Goodness. Many of our individual virtues are the same and resonate in our quintessential selves, those that are different are the ones we admire and want for ourselves and seamlessly complement us.

Maggie is the good-est person I know. Certainly, one of the most selfless. She will do anything necessary to benefit her loved ones. Everything she does for others is done with style and grace and flair. It always looks extra, but it is simply her uncompromising level of participation. It is automatic and intrinsic. 

I feel like my loved ones get the short end of the stick in their relationship with me. Even as a child my body knew aches and pains and was injured easily. You will need to find someone else to help you with the physical tasks of living. Even though I have siblings, due to age gaps, geographic distance, and marital breakups I am more an only child personality type. Happy to hang out on the fringe of the adults, keeping still and quiet to have permitted access. I enjoy my own company and lose track of the extensive time that passes between socializing with others. My daily routines all support my private and mostly solitary way of being in the world. 

For the past two weeks we have lived under the same roof, day in and day out and for me it has been a wonderful experience. To be completely honest, in the beginning we hit a rough patch with my hypersensitive respiratory reaction to her laundry products on her clothes’. Thankfully, we found ways to resolve and manage. Let’s just declare vinegar and air purifiers and fans as a Godsend. It works both ways, she has had to manage her cat allergy. We upped our cleaning game and my bedroom has always been a pet-free zone. So we resolved and managed and that in itself has been a learning experience. I’m more of a this-is-too-much-exit-stage-right kind of person. 

My daughter is more like her Tia than me in many ways and that works for all of us. Maggie is the closest I’ve ever had to a sister and she dubbed herself Tia to my daughter the minute she was born. Way back in the day when my daughter was born, Maggie and I both lived in Tampa. I was even still wearing perfume! We each wore different distinct fragrances. Maggie borrowed mine to wear when she visited me, starting in the hospital. She insisted because she wanted the baby to feel familiar with her when she held her in her arms. It worked. 

It intrigues me how my daughter expresses her feminine flair in ways I’ve watched Maggie do for years. They each have an undeniable presence anywhere they are. They initiate, they participate, they co-create and make any environment their own. They actively live wherever they are, even if they are only there a short while. I am more of a just passing-through type to my surroundings, even if I’ve been there for years. 

It’s resulting in a mutually happy coexistence these past couple of weeks. We each are comforted and feel comfortable in our respective roles and our little domains. 

Part of the pleasure of relationships is being able to experience our own contributions. Modest as it is, I am privileged to have a home to open up to my friend. I’m able to provide a bed to sleep, food to eat, transportation, and entertainment, as well as time with us and time to herself. I am grateful. We are sharing experiences and activities and ourselves. We talk and we laugh and we cry and we even dance together. We are sharing all that we can on how to live a healthier and more peaceful life. Seeing our habits and ways have a positive and healing effect means a lot to us. We all can benefit from switching things up a bit. Maggie’s intrinsic selfless way of being in the world is responding like flowers in a desert rain as she can be here with us and allow us to abundantly cater and pamper and pet on her. 

It goes both ways.

I am enjoying having another loved one so closeby. 

Another one to greet in the morning. 

Another one to hangout with on the Catio. 

Another one to say I love you to. 

 I especially enjoy giving, and receiving of  the loving touch. 

A well timed light and comforting touch on the arm or shoulder. 

A back rub on tightened and sore muscles. 

A morning hug in the kitchen in front of the stove. 

A cry-it-all-out-on-my shoulder hug. 

Best of all, is the I-know-everything-you’ve-gone-through-and-I’ve-got-your-back-forever embrace. 

Her visit is opening up my heart and mind more to being loved and loving others. 

Love truly is the energy that unites us and reveals Oneness. 

The reactivation of dormant energy I’m feeling has made me reconsider the meaning behind the command to:  “Love another as yourself” is in essence a declaration. 

The others are ourselves.

(The End)

Hi there! Thank you for stopping by and reading my posts.

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Here’s to Beautiful Segues.