I miss my friends

This sounds cheesy but cheese is good. I miss my friends I met in Elementary School who I grew up with and attended middle school and high school with. I miss seeing my friends almost every day and spending time with them. I moved far away from my home town where I was brought up far from my friends who stayed.

People grow up and start families and build careers and have less time for friends when raising their own family and working to pay their mortgage and save money for their children’s college education and to have for their retirement. That’s life.

I moved half way across the country to Medford Oregon not knowing anyone other than some of my family who have since moved very far away from Southern Oregon. It’s just me here. Me and my pet dog. A good thing about being in Medford is every day I see people I’ve never met for the first time and have opportunities to make new friends.

I’m 47 and it seems as the years go by the harder it is to meet new people and make new friends. I haven’t been in College for nearly 30 years and meeting people outside of school is not as easy. Good friends don’t come easy.

I’ve never been married and am not a father. I could still bring children into the world with a good woman and that would be a challenge for the ages. challenges are good to have and build strength and resilience to adversity.

A good thing about being in Medford is I’m very far away from people I once called friends who did not look out for me and did not have my best interest in their minds. Some of the people I once called friends were bad influences, self destructive and reckless. They needed healing, correction and recovery. They are far away in space and time and of the distant past.

It’s better this way. I want to make new friends here in Medford who look out for me and have healthy habits and are of good character. I want to make new friends that are not in trouble with the law and have learned from mistakes either their own or from others. That’s a good thing about living in Medford. I don’t know trouble makers in Medford and I don’t know people in Medford who are in trouble with the law.

When it comes to making new friends in Medford I’m on a new page to fill with good habits that strengthen community. While there’s no reason for me to detail past troubles I’ve experienced I don’t shy from talking about mistakes I’ve made with people I know. When meeting someone for the first time I don’t talk about past troubles. Speaking to someone I just met about past mistakes would be awkward and out of context given the healthy positive situations I find strength in every day.

In Journal entries posted below are more details that include my successes and struggles.

I’m glad I had the opportunity to leave my home town for many reasons and took it. Many people never move far from where they are born. I’ve travelled to many cities and states, some for work and mostly on vacation and visited a large handful of foreign countries over the years. I’ve always come back home to United States. The U.S. is where I’m from and is my home.

I’m proud to be an American. The United States has many strengths and has many problems regardless of who POTUS is and how he or she goes about leading Americans and the role they play in the world. Responsible citizens work to make this country and the world a better place to live in. I believe that immigrants have many reasons to migrate out of the country where they were born. Most immigrants migrate for good reasons, are hard working and law abiding. That’s not the case in every situation, it never was. I’ve written more on the topic of migration in the posts below.

Living in Medford Oregon is much different than my home town in Colorado. Oregon became a state 17 years before Colorado became a state. That seems odd to me. Some of my distant family members on my mom’s side of our family very long ago were Pioneers from Europe and settlers who arrived in Virginia on the Atlantic Ocean’s East Coast.

On my dad’s side of our family my great great great Grandfather ( honestly it’s not clear to me how many generations ago) arrived in Ellis Island New York. Gradually over many generations our family settled further out west.

Colorado is smack dab in the middle center of US and Oregon is on the farther North on the West Coast of the Pacific ocean. I’m not a history expert but it seems that when Pioneers moved out west in carriages on horseback they would have arrived on the land that is Colorado long before they arrived on the land that is Oregon.

Good friends don’t come easy. Wish me luck.