Day 10 of 31 Days of My Single Life

I have a friend, a young married, a new mom, who will take my random texts any time of day. She goes ballistic when I rejoice and offers a listening ear when I'm sad. She enters into my world no matter what. She doesn't reply back as soon as I text, and I wouldn't expect her to. But when she does, she is all there.

I have been really busy lately. "Busy" isn't the right word for it. I have found myself completely absorbed in activities. Today I stayed at work til after 6 with colleagues trying to figure out a new elementary schedule where all the teachers will get a prep time but all our subjects will get taught. Teaching can feel like a carnival show--juggling, juggling, oops! I dropped a class! Let's try again....

Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday--well, you know--I was completely consumed with creating my grandma's memorial album. I didn't have brain power to try to explain to anyone why I couldn't be present mentally elsewhere. I didn't have time to enter into anyone else's world.

I think as the texting generation, we need to not expect people to reply to our texts right away, even if they have already "read" it. It is not reasonable for me to think that someone else's life is so flat-lined that they should be able to get back to me right away and immediately enter into all my thought processing. Sometimes people are just busy with life or their own thought-processes, or even eating dinner with their family (it does happen!), to also deal with the pressure to reply back to a text. Sometimes we get to live in the present and in the present location where we are standing. That is a good thing. We need to extend grace to others to do the same.

As the texting generation, we also have a unique ability to keep in touch with friends as if they were always present with us. We can ask a quick question, give a btw update, make a joke filled with emoji, provide distraction during a stressful work day, help each other not feel lonely at 11:30 at night, or (my favorite one to get) tell someone we're praying for them--all with very little time commitment to stay on the phone to the exclusion of other activities. So when we can reply to a text in a way that shows that we are giving that person our complete attention as if they were there, showing that we care even in the middle of our busy lives, just like my friend does, that is an amazing gift.

So these are my two principles of texting communication for today: Respect that your friends have lives apart from their phones, and love your friends on the other side of their phones.

P.S. If you don't like the subject of this post, do remember that I committed to writing for 31 days straight (!!!) and the subject topics get mighty slim. This texting thing is actually something I'm dealing with right now, so it's not completely random or merely didactic. If you're curious what on earth other people write about for 31 days, go to http://write31days.com/. My link is under "family life." XP

seemed like a selfie would be the most appropriate
accompanying pic for a post about texting