When you spend the night with people, you learn alot about them.
We had a friend and her kids over this weekend. She has spent the summer traveling, making the best use of her time as her husband is in Iraq.
Our families hail from the same state.
Her family owned some sort of mansion downtown in the town we live in currently, and apparently owned most of the street lined with mansions.
My family owns some farm land in town where we grew up, and a few have houses as opposed to double-wide trailers.
My friend has a "family name" that she shares with her female ancestors, and has passed it on to her daughter. It is their middle name, and a college in our state was named after this family name when her family founded it.
Our son is named after his grandpa. I was named after an old song by the Allman Brothers' Band. And as far as founding anything, I think maybe my family founded a Lynyrd Skynyrd fan club.
I just found it interesting that our geographical upbringing could be so similar, but our social upbringing was like living on Mars and Venus.
My friend is completely down to earth and real, but she has manners I didn't even know existed.
What is even more interesting to me is how her upbringing has played into her adult life. With her husband's position in the Army, she is in situations where she needs to draw from her meticulous upbringing, and she never misses a beat.
Where I, on the other hand, fumble through and learn as I go, which is pretty much how I do everything in life, and figure it will all turn out okay in the end.
It's funny, I am not in the least jealous of my friend, I am just in awe and amazed at how different our lives are, yet we have enough common ground to be able to be very close.
I learn so much about dealing with people, situations, and life in general from watching her in action. I cannot imagine what the benefits are for her hanging out with the likes of me.
Maybe I can get her some discounted tickets to a Skynyrd concert...
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