There’s this blogger out there (see link here: http://thegypsymama.com/2011/04/five-minute-friday-if-you-met-me/) who does a weekly blog challenge called “Five Minute Friday.”  You have five minutes to blog about whatever without any edits and then she gives away prizes.  I don’t need a prize – I just saw a challenge and thought, “challenge, accepted.”  So here we go.  Five minutes of my Friday just for you:

This week has been a good week.  From last Friday to this Friday, I’ve spent a lot of time with some of my best friends.  It’s been a while since I’ve been able to do that.  I miss my high school and college days when everyone was just there.  If I wanted to hang out, I could just make a phone call or yell across the hall.  Now it takes some real time to make plans.  You have to figure out schedules, locations, finances to cover gas/food/adventure essentials, and sometimes it feels like such a huge production just to get together with someone.  I miss the times of just going to the park because you lived in the same town.  I miss hanging out at Wal-Mart trying on Halloween costumes and taking pictures because it was fun and there really was just nothing better to do.  Most of all, I really miss just having some of my best friends living within a ten mile radius.  While I’m thankful for all of the friends I’ve made since, well, I was able to socialize, I really just wish it were easier to spend more time with them and that our neighborhoods, real or imagined, were a little bit closer.  And even though I couldn’t and wouldn’t really want to bring our neighborhoods together because I’m glad for the various paths my friends have traveled that have taken them all around the world, I’m thankful for the time I did have with them and the time I will have with them in the future.  They’re worth the big production.