Heptadecagon

Way back when I first moved to Ohio, I met a woman I'll call Olive. We run in the same circles, but we've never been friends, per se. Over the years, she's contacted me when she's needed me: asking questions about kids, schools, or jobs. I remember a couple of times, she called to find out if I could watch her child for an hour or so because she had an appointment. Of course I said yes. I always said yes. I think she knew that I would; that's why she asked me . The other day, while I was trolling (my favorite) Word Porn site, I found the statement below. I realized two things after reading it. 1. While I don't expect to be given anything, relationships are usually reciprocal, and this woman has never given anything to me in return; and 2.  When I see this woman and I say, "How are you?" she replies with a simple, "Good." And then, keeps walking. As I said, I wouldn't consider her a friend. And now I know that I probably never ...

It's taken me long enough to figure this out, but I truly believe part of what makes a healthy life are the people you choose to surround yourself with. Hopefully, you have a good smattering of people in your microcosm. Or maybe I should say a good smattering of good people. But I've found that, at least in my life, there exists a subset of people who I think will support me no matter what, based on what they tell me. Now, when push comes to shove, as they say, those people cave like a wet piece of cardboard, and instead of supporting and helping me, it's the other way around. I'm okay with that scenario, now that I'm aware that it happens. After all, I'm a big supporter of supporters and supporting, and I hope that I'm actually a big supporter of yours. I've also found (I know, no one likes an "and then" story, which is sort of where this is going, but remember--this isn't a story, thank you very much), I'm lucky enough to have the...