One is silver, and the other's gold

I've been thinking a lot lately about people who are my friends, and people who I thought would become my friends, but didn't ever really become my friends. Usually, people fall into the former, not the latter of the category.

First, there's Janssen. I just thought she was so odd. Harry Potter poster, teddy bear (I still don't really understand why she brought a teddy bear to college), the high volume that came from her tiny body -- these are just a few things that made me think she was just too weird to ever become my friend. But, somehow somewhere along the way we became friends, and I was able to look past her many oddities, and she has MANY oddities, and she became one of my greatest friends.

Then there are the grownups in my classes. When I started taking family history classes I was surprised by how many "mature students" there were in my classes. Initially I did not talk to them, mostly because I felt like I didn't have anything to say to them. There were a few that really bothered me, especially the too-frequent commenters (Too-frequent commenters bother me, no matter their age) and the ones who already knew a lot about family history. I just didn't understand why they would take a family history class if they already knew how to do family history. But with time, I've really learned to love these grown women in my classes. In reality, we're not very different. As students we're all striving to pull off the balancing act that comes with taking classes. Some are more successful than others. I was shocked, completely and utterly shocked to learn that the oldest of my classmates, a woman with great-grandchildren, and therefore grandchildren who are older than me, admitted that she had stayed up all night to finish an assignment. We arrived at class in the late afternoon, and she said, "I haven't gone to bed or eaten anything except this cookie all day. I'm too old for this!" Wow! She's just like all the rest of us. And she's my friend.

Last, my landlady, Louise. She's 86. She's my friend. I really like her. We have more in common than one might imagine.

There's also lots of people who I thought I would become best buddies with, but nothing ever really happened. We were just classmates, wardmates, workmates, and other such what-have-yous. Upon first meeting, I usually thought these people were just exceptionally intriguing and very cool, so, of course, we would soon be pals. But, then things just fizzled. Perhaps they were not so interested in me as a friend. Perhaps because they found me annoying, perhaps because they just weren't looking for a friend like I might have been at the time.

It will be interesting to see who my future friends are and how I find them.