{"id":4776,"date":"2025-09-01T15:44:56","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T19:44:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/?p=4776"},"modified":"2025-09-01T16:02:37","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T20:02:37","slug":"a-friend-indeed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/?p=4776","title":{"rendered":"A Friend Indeed"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

The story spark was Perspective. The writing prompt I chose was a quote by Angela Farmer, a renowned yoga teacher, which is used in this piece. <\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

A Friend Indeed<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Never pay attention to me when I am shopping by myself. I am not alone. There is a part of me that questions every item I select. Questions of size, quantity, brand name, ripeness, expiration date\u2026 You get the idea.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I\u2019m sure when a number of you go shopping, these types of questions pop up in your head, too. You look at a shelf of goods, pondering the necessity versus the cost, or the quality versus the generic or brand name. You, then, make your decision and put it in your cart. All of this was done internally, and no one else is the wiser.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I, on the other hand, make these decisions after an external conversation with my good friend and advisor – me. Who else would I talk to?<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

We now move out of the store and into an outside or inside task. It might be gardening. It might be a walk in the neighborhood. It could be working at home, vacuuming, or writing.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

And who is with me, you might ask. Sometimes it is Christina, but my friend, me,\u00a0 is always there butting his nose into my goings and doings. There are any number of times when I say something out loud and Christina, from another room, will either say, \u201cWhat did you say?\u201d or \u201cAre you talking to me?\u201d in that knowing voice that acknowledges that there are times that I am not talking to her, even though there is no one else in the house.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I\u2019m not sure who is talking to the animals or insects when I\u2019m outdoors and they are attempting to interact with me, positively or negatively. Am I the culprit, or is it me?<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I\u2019ve grown accustomed to the looks that I get from real people who notice that I am talking and there is no one around me.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I don\u2019t get as many looks as I used to, since it\u2019s a lot easier nowadays. Many people wear earbuds with their phones and have actual conversations with people you can\u2019t see.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

As Angela Farmer, a renowned yoga teacher,\u00a0 said, \u201cThe thing about aging is, you make friends with yourself. You can finally meet yourself in a loving way.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The older I get, the more conversations I have. I mean, who knows who I am better than me? If you don\u2019t believe I do, just ask me. If you can\u2019t, I surely will.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The story spark was Perspective. The writing prompt I chose was a quote by Angela Farmer, a renowned yoga teacher, which is used in this piece. A Friend Indeed Never pay attention to me when I am shopping by myself. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[177],"class_list":["post-4776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-story-writing","tag-writing-prompt"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4776"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4780,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4776\/revisions\/4780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}