friends

I may make it through OctPoWriMo after all! Nineteen poems (more actually) in 19 days hasn’t been as easy as I’d thought it would be; I know now why it’s called a “challenge”!

Last night this thought, which I may elaborate on later, swirled through my head: online friends are real friends and online communities are also real communities. Lots of people don’t, or won’t, understand/recognize this. But having been a part of them, made friends – real friends – via various online-means (no, no dating sites or any such thing before your mind wonders in the wrong places) I know that it can be a good, real, and beneficial thing.

The idea expanded itself into this crowned odquain I share now.

We
Met online
Never in person
Yet we are very real friends
Now

Not
Virtual
But real close caring
More than many face to face
Folks

I
Know many
Online folks better
Than I do two houses from
Me

Some
Don’t get it
Can’t understand how
Strangers can become so close
Friends

New
Demonized
And misunderstood
Not everyone will see the
Good

Since I got this idea and wrote the first stanza last night, I didn’t have the prompt suggestion for today yet. The idea stuck and expanded so I chose to stay with my thought rather than use the optional prompts.

As I write this I am merely hours from the monumental task of completing my income taxes. And even less time from having them accepted and officially completed! I knew we would owe so I wasn’t in a hurry to file early, just starting really yesterday. But I didn’t realize how much I had to do; I’d been really lax in my preparation this year and I paid for it in stress the last 48 hours.

I took one short break this afternoon from my drudgery to check my email and look at comments left on the blog. This break turned out to be the saving grace of the day for me.

I had “likes” and comments from newly made friends that greatly lifted my spirits. Since I’ve started writing again, the last few weeks, I feel like I’ve made several new friends through reading and interacting with other writers. I feel like a part of a new little community, one that shares, helps, and encourages each other. Being brand new to it I probably feel closer to and more a part of it than I really am – but that’s good; it shows what kind folks these people are I’m getting to know. And I really look forward to getting to know them better, knowing more of them, and learning from and being further inspired by them all.

I’m still amazed at how quickly you, or at least I, can feel like you’ve made a new friend via the World Wide Web, someone you’ve never met and may never meet. And it gives me such joy to see the kindness of folks from all walks of life, all over the globe who are really still strangers to me be so helpful and encouraging. My hat is off to you guys and gals: You made a “taxing” day into a real joy for me today.