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"I met up for coffee with an old friend yesterday. She&amp;#039;s someone I met at NBC a million years ago. We used to go to Vegas together, travel across Texas, road trip to San Francisco, move each other in and out of apartments and plan each others&amp;#039; weddings (and just a few babies.) Now we&amp;#039;re lucky if we see each other once every three months at a coffee dive strip mall. I&amp;#039;m thinking that has to change. We got on the subject of writing. She first mentioned Babble - a go to site for many moms to read about other moms who write about other moms and all things mom related. (I&amp;#039;m tired just writing that.) She had just read a list of the Top 50 Mom Blogs and asked my opinions on some of their content. I surprised myself by knowing more about them then I thought I would. It was disheartening because while I knew who was having what baby and what crisis in some small town in Utah, I didn&amp;#039;t know what was going on with the person sitting across from me. I didn&amp;#039;t read the news that day. And I certainly hadn&amp;#039;t read any compelling books in the past few months. (Though I am taking in bits and pieces of all of the above. I&amp;#039;m not that isolated.) My friend went on to ask if everything I write about here is true. Me: &amp;quot;Of course it is. I&amp;#039;m not going to lie.&amp;quot; Her: &amp;quot;The naked apron story?&amp;quot; Me: &amp;quot;Yup.&amp;quot; Her: &amp;quot;The friends getting a divorce?&amp;quot; Me: &amp;quot;Yup.&amp;quot; Her: &amp;quot;The sex under the swing set?&amp;quot; Me: &amp;quot;Yup.&amp;quot; Her. &amp;quot;Ewwww.&amp;quot; Our whole conversation was a light bulb moment for me. For one, it explains why her child never comes over and plays in our back yard. For another, I hadn&amp;#039;t been so aware that my friend was following my &amp;quot;life&amp;quot; vicariously through my writing. And while what I post about did indeed happen, it&amp;#039;s what I don&amp;#039;t post about that makes my life interesting. The same concept applies to my marriage. Every night I sit with Rex on the couch and chat about what he chooses to share with me about work or his friends. I share with him the broad strokes of my day at work or picking up the kids. But what about the things hidden in our hearts that desperately need to be brought to the light? When do those get discussed? Oh... right... when we make the time for them. If we don&amp;#039;t, they&amp;#039;ll just lay dormant, barely alive. But they will never go away. The soul is far too passionate for that. They will come out in the form of distance, ulcers, acne, resentment and distrust - at worst, broken friendships and divorce. That&amp;#039;s kind of dramatic for a fairly simple fix. I have a small resolution for 2010: Time. Time to see friends, and time to date Rex. Both will inevitably lead to more coffee and more sex. And perhaps the soul inside of me that has only come out to play to write a few columns or go to church on a harried Sunday morning (and even that last one depends on the week) will come back to dance, sing, laugh and feel alive. Who out there believes in the soul? I have much to say on this topic and if it&amp;#039;s at all of interest, I&amp;#039;ll keep going with it. In this day and age of achieve achieve achieve it&amp;#039;s so easy to forget that flowers only grow in richly fed soil. What are you putting into your soil? (Or are you just expecting your spouse to bring you flowers and fix it for you? Good luck with that one.) * Photo of the Pioneer Woman- a nominated Babble Blog blog about love, life, motherhood and making farming look sexy. Kudos to her! It is a beautiful blog. (Though I doubt you&amp;#039;ll hear about sex under the tractor.) "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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