Friends..

Lately I have been thinking about how lucky I am with the people who have found their way into my life. I am still really close friends with a few friends from school and a couple of people from university, however I have found more and more recently that most of the people I call friends are people I have never even met, or have met a handful of times but originally met through the internet. I belong to a handful of e-mail discussion groups and internet boards, mostly with people who are married to men from a culture other than their own but I also belong to two groups of women whose babies were born around the same time as me. Thanks to those groups I find that I never really feel lonely anymore (except for days when I want to have huge parties and realise that very few of the people I want to invite live close enough to come!!) and there is always someone on hand to offer a helping hand and/ or a piece of advise. When I was pregnant I received so many wonderful gifts from my internet friends and as a result Joey has so many things that he wouldn`t have otherwise, either because we couldn`t have afforded to buy them or because they aren`t available in Japan. I know alot of people think the internet is for geeks and I know my husband thinks I spend WAY too much time on the internet but I don`t think he realises what an important crutch it has become for me. I know that my friends at home think the internet thing is weird but I refuse to be embarassed and consider myself blessed and lucky to have so many wonderful people in my life! One day I would love to have a party and have everyone come but sadly I don`t think that is ever going to happen!! (not unless I win the lottery anyway!!)