A question about relationships (aka: I’m pulling a *Jay-Z aka: hello blog!) October 3, 2010

A few weeks ago, I was spending my free time putting together a list of reading strategies for a bulletin board to help kids comprehend what they are reading. (And yes, this is what teachers do in their free time. So before you start going all “JULY AND AUGUST HOLIDAYS” on me, I’m just going to stop you right here and tell you to suck it.) One of the strategies that most experts agree on, is that a student needs to be able to recognize relationships in writing and understand what these relationships mean. As seen here. Please note how professional I am, doing my serious teacher work on my comfy bed:

Students who are able to connect people, understand their relationships while reading, tend to do better seeing the big picture- what the story is ultimately about. They tend to be better at predicting what will happen next in the story, explaining what already happened and distilling the main points of the tale when sharing with others.

Blah, Blah, Blah.

So what this really got me thinking about was, how do I define my relationships. Because seriously, it’s important that I always bring it back to me.

I have friends. I’m lucky enough to have the very best of friends. Friends who make me laugh and go to Harry Potter world with me and stay in hotel rooms with me and watch SYTYCD marathons with me when the entire world has gotten comfortable resting it’s heavy mass on my shoulders.  Friends who call just because, text funny stories, email just to wish me a good day. Yes, I have very good friends.

And of course, I have H.A.D. . The charmingest of charming fellows who manages to calm me down after Colts games (SERIOUSLY THOUGH? WTF WAS THAT TODAY?), makes me laugh like no one else and routinely tells me I’m gorgeous and lovely, brilliant and better than Salma Hayek (which we both know is a lie, but I pretend it’s true).  He’s truly, truly great and I wish everyone could have a dude who is as kind as he is. I’d keep going, but I’m pretty sure I can hear some of you gagging on all my swooniness. (Or are getting cavities with all my sweetness).

I know couples who routinely call their partner their best friend. I know couples who are glad they are in a couple, love the person they are with, but call friends outside their coupled relationship their best friend.  Which got me thinking- do you have a best friend? Or are you someone who has a group of close friends? Is your spouse/partner your best friend or do you look outside your relationship and find yourself best friends with someone else? Is it too sixth grade to think that you can only have one best friend or do you have different kinds of best friends? Is it just me or does routinely typing ‘best friend’ make me sound like I’m 12 years old?

Maybe once we grow up we are supposed to stop talking about best friends. Maybe that’s why I feel silly asking about it.  Or maybe, once we grow up the idea of “best friend” changes and it’s harder to articulate how we feel, what makes a best friend or how we feel about the one (or ones) we have. Or maybe, if you are lucky, you’ve never stopped to think about something like this, because you are too busy polishing your BFF necklace you are still wearing from the friend you’ve had since the sixth grade.

I hope for you, it’s the last one.

*Thank you Laurie. When I mentioned on twitter that I was thinking about blogging again but felt like I was going to become the Brett Farve of blogging, Laurie sweetly suggested it could be thought of as being the Jay-Z of blogging. And we all know Jay-Z has more swagger than Brett.  And well, he has grammy’s and Beyonce and a freaking yacht. Which promptly made me re-evalulate my life and if Jay-Z could come out of retirement, marry the girl who helped create the greatest roadrtrip CD ever (that would be “SURVIVOR” in case you were curious) and have hit songs, why couldn’t I come out of my blogcoma and once again share random thoughts with people? Indeed.