Friendship Project 1

Rush hour is real.

At the beginning and end of work days, commuters form community.  Trains, planes and automobiles transform strangers into companions.  Many spouses see each other less often than commuters see each other.  Some schoolchildren are influenced more by bus drivers and peers than by their parents.  Shared experience makes fast friends.

Commuting is a shared experience but any situation will do.  Watching the game, sharing an airplane or dropping off kindergarteners can draw strangers closer.  Cherith Fluker discovered community as a volleyball mom.

"We were seeing [people] two or three times a week because we were in the same place.  We would see those people all day on Saturday standing at tournaments."  Cherith is the mother of two children and sports transformed strangers into companions.

Companionship is real.

When Cherith buried one parent within months of the other, she learned to lean on her friends.  When the children went off to college and empty nesting stirred questions, her friends supported her.  After navigating crises and managing change, however, Cherith noticed a timeless truth.  When situations change, friendships change too.

...her friendships have shifted.  While Fluker, 43, believes in "make new friends, but keep the old," she's finding new friends focused on her interests, "not the people at the volleyball game because their kids play volleyball.  That's our kids' [thing], not our thing." (reference)

 Change is real.

Cherith grew and you're growing.  She learned, and blogs about learning how, to find new friends.

Next is weaving this into H7453

Notes:

rê·‘îm @H7453 (most common in OT): brother, companion, fellow, friend, husband, lover, neighbor, another...Or reya2 {ray'-ah}; from ra'ah; an associate (more or less close) -- brother, companion, fellow, friend, husband, lover, neighbour, X (an-)other.