making friends on purpose.

isn't it funny how my blog has turned into a personal diary {personal meaning for my own documentation AND the place i scribbled my super secrets in the margins} more so than a place for me to share my sweet finds from the anthropologie sales rack and silly adventures with my bffl?

i want this to be a fun place.

but right about now, i feel like i've been an exhausing blogger... like i'm standing in the front of the room, lecturing for hours. we're at the end of day four of a week long seminar about the reality of adult life and i've lost all of the attention of my pupils. nothing can save me now.

but maybe i'll start worrying about that tomorrow. today, i have something important to say... about the reality of adult life, imagine that.

i write this for my future self. this serious minute might not interest you, so click on if you'd like. i expect nothing by way of comments. this isn't like the post about my dad's plans for my taco-stand inspired wedding reception or anything. nothing to wow the crowds.

so here we go.

i laugh and i joke about being friends with a former drug addict... and this "champion of the helpless" bit... and even talk in jest about the possibility of marrying a felon.

but, by way of my friendship - no one really asked me to be friends with a felon. in fact, i hate thinking about it that way anymore, talking about it in that regard. i was the last to know she was a felon. that part didn't even matter. i made friends with a loud, funny, well dressed girl who lived nearby.

but, still... knowing the end from the beginning... knowing that i'd spend 100 hours at the bountiful food pantry with really klassy folk and the like... a piece of me thinks "i had no idea my life would bring me here" {i mostly thought that while sitting at the davis county adult parole and probation office}. another piece of me thinks "naturally. this is in my bones. my dad made me this way. this is a piece of my purpose."

but here's the reality part. i don't know what to do with myself when i'm not serving someone else. and i'm not talking the service project that comes around on a sign-up sheet and asks me to give two hours of myself on a saturday morning. it's a lesson i learned from my mom and dad - both in verrrry different ways. my dad initiates, leads, and maintains long term acts of charity like no one else i know... and he does it again and again and again. my mom's vision turns menial chores into relevent and consequential hallmarks. she bridges gaps and blazes trails.

on the same token, i never ever NEVER considered 100 hours of community service at the bountiful food pantry as a project. it was my life. and for the record, it was reallly fun.

given the opportunity to do i again {an opportunity i have been given} - to make a new friend under similar circumstances - i say yes. not because i could really use a new friend or because i'm really bored these days and have nothing else to do with my time... i do it because, no doubt, there have been 58507632 people who have turned their back or said no before me.

and as my dad pointed out - we do it because we love some whose souls wander and want nothing more than to have them back. if we can't do it... we sure as hell hope for them to be surrounded by people who can.

it's all a part of the plan... for us to channel our inner "brother" and "sister" and to bring each other back.

so that's what i do.

i befriend felons.