Lessons on Adulthood: November 22

Life is about learning lessons–that is how we keep growing and evolving. Lessons I learned this week involve friendship, relationships, and…shopping!

1) Friends come and go — even friends that you think are kindred spirits. But you see their faults, and you think, “But I am special. They would never do that to me.” And then it happens. A betrayal can be as small and unspoken as a silent phone, an unanswered call, or a secret. But the loss is heavy, the rift is wide. So you try to accept the change, set aside the bitterness, appreciate them for their moment in time, and move on. Call it a lesson learned.

2) Recently, I ventured to Sonoma for a weekend of wine and hibernating for a dear friend’s bachelorette party. One of the days we were there, we drove down Sonoma’s coast to an epic iPod soundtrack and then stopped at a little restaurant for dinner. We had to wait a few minutes for a table, so we stood outside on the patio deck looking at the ocean.

A couple, who appeared to be in their early 50s, was also waiting for a table. We chatted with them a bit about where we were from and why we were in Sonoma. They were vacationing for their 25^th wedding anniversary.

“Do you have any advice for the bride-to-be?” I asked them, expecting some cheeky response.

The couple thought for a moment and the woman said: “When you get married, you have fights sometimes, you might disagree, you might even be attracted to another person, but on our wedding day, we made a vow to always choose each other. So, no matter how angry we may be when we go to bed, no matter how stressful life may get, we wake up every day and think ‘I choose you’ and we are happy.” (Note: it is not “I chose you”, it is “I choose you.”)

Then the husband spoke. He had a slight accent which he indicated was because he was born in Israel. He said, “Never hit below the belt. Because hitting below the belt leaves a hole of hurt so big that no amount of apologies can ever fill it. And you can never take the words back.”

Duly noted.

3) And on a lighter note….From Kaitlan, a reader in Arizona, “Adulthood is seeing a pair of boots you want, being able to buy them without devastating your budget, and walking away because it is the season to give.”

(Photo via AlyssaFilmmaker on Flickr.)