What will you do, just to make friends?

    I wanted to be their friends.  Things have been like this for as long as I can remember.  The two women and a lady I call "the Snoot" laughed and talked.  They looked so happy except when they looked at me. I stood next to the car and tried talking to those three ladies.

    But things never go how I hope.  After all, those women are boot wearers.  They look super fancy all the time with perfect hair and nails.  They know how to layer their eye shadow--an art I can only dream of.

    Anyway, I smiled and waved.  Even their body language showed how much they dislike me.

    "This should be a fabulous year," one woman said, putting her back to me.

    I guess that's when my feelings really got hurt.  I refused to give up though, and I thought of how I could make it into their click.

    I'd just read this story in Guideposts:  

Choosing Words to Live By

    There are a few amazing blog posts about it, too, and all of them really spoke to me.  It's about picking a special word for the year, one word to live by.  I turned to those women as they quieted down.

    "I'm excited for this year, too," I said.

    "Oh . . . how nice," one lady said.

    "And I just led a safari in Africa," the Snoot's eyes practically bragged!

    "Anyway, I read a story about how you can pick a special word to live by."  

    They finally turned to me.

    I cleared my throat as if a spotlight shone on my face and I talked into a microphone.  "If you could pick one special word to live by for this year, what would it be?"

    The first woman stood poised.  "I'd pick the word makeup.  This year I've vowed to look my best.  I won't be this young forever and I want to make the most of it and shine while I can."
    "But there are other words.  Comfort.  Kindness.  Hope."
    "No," she said.  "I'd just prefer makeup more than anything."

    O-kay.  I hadn't heard of anyone picking that word yet.

    The other woman nodded.  "That's a good one.  I would pick money.  The one thing that will get me joy this year is making more money and saving it so I can get a big house."

    I cleared my throat.

    "My word," the Snoot said with her nose in the air.  "My word would be motherhood because that's what I emulate every day of my life.  Some people wish they could be more like me, but instead they spend too much time working out, or making money.  They even spend too much time trying to make friends with people who are better than them.  This year I want to be the best mother ever.  Because I know that's what I really am inside."

    Her words were so condescending--so RUDE!  Instead of thinking how much I want to be like them, I kept wondering, how do I always meet such weirdos!

    "And you, what's your name again?" Max Factor asked.

    "Elisa."

    "Elisa, what word . . . would someone like you pick?"

    I thought of last year.  Then, I thought about how much I've changed and how proud I am of that.  "Well, you picked makeup," I pointed.  "You picked money . . . and you picked motherhood."  I closed my eyes, nodded and laughed.  "The word I'm going with.  Well, I guess my word for this moment and this year would have to be bullshit!"

    You should have seen their faces.  I smiled at them before walking away.  I sat in my van, pulled out a paper and wrote.  It was a symbolic piece, something to share another time.  But for today, I thought I'd share my word of the year with you.  I would have picked JOY, but something else slid into it's place for a second.  

    It was probably terrible what I did, but the fact remains, I'm tired of them putting me (and others) down, 'cause they think they're better and that's just a bunch of bull.