Know Where You Are Going Before You Invite Someone Along

My 31 Days Series From Hometown to New Town will return on Monday. For now enjoy a story or two of funny stories that took place during our first year settling in to our new town.

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Shortly after moving to Indiana I found a woman at church who was also new to the area. She had 2 children close in age to two of my three children. She was very friendly and seemed to need a friend and much as I did, since she was also new to the area.

I decided to be brave and invite her to meet me at a local park I had heard about. Problem was, I was not really to sure where the park was and as I mentioned yesterday my sense of direction is not that great.

I met the new friend at a central location before we took off to find the park together. I took the road I thought it was on only to find out it was a dead end. My friend and  I then spent the next 15 minutes or so going down practically every road in the area and still not finding the park that I had heard of.

Finally she asked me to follow her to a Burger King with a play land she knew the directions to. There we sat and got to know one another and I quickly got over my “oh she must think I am such a dork inviting her to a park I can’t even find” attitude and enjoyed her company.

That friend is now one of my closest friends. Even though she no longer lives in the same town as me I still take the time to drive to her home every other month or so, or she takes the time to drive to mine. Our boys are best of friends and our families are like family to one another.

Lesson Learned: Make sure you actually know the way to something before you invite someone else along but if you don’t it might not be that big of a deal. Be brave, step out of your comfort zone and make the first move towards a friendship.

(oh and it turns out if we had just gone one block further down one of the side streets we took that day we would have hit the park)