Making New Friends at Every Age

By: Susan "Honey" Good

I inherited many things from my mother, including her drive and desire. I live outside the box. I plunge into life. Life is my oyster, as the saying goes. This attitude has made my life far more interesting for me and it's kept me open to meeting new people and making new friends, which I believe keeps us vibrant at any age!

As you may recall, several years ago I broke my ankle and boy was it annoying, darlings! One day, I was hobbling, through an Italian restaurant that serves the most delicious Italian food, on my walker with my leg in a cast. In order to get to the table I had to pass a table. A man stopped me because I was on a walker. Long story short he informed me he had a broken ankle too! I met his wife for a brief moment and then continued on to our table to have the most delicious meal of spaghetti with clam sauce.

A few weeks later hobbling into a party on my walker, a very pretty woman approached me as I sat talking with her husband. She could have said her hellos and left but instead sat with me for the entire evening. Who was the woman? She was the wife of the man with the broken ankle! Was it good karma? Yes!

She told me she and her husband live in LA. My husband and I were going to be in LA that weekend. She reached out to me, out of her comfort zone, and asked if we could meet for Sunday brunch handing me her cell phone number. "Call at the last minute, we're easy," she said. She dared at her age to make a new friendship. She lives outside the box.

I debated whether to call. Sunday came and at nine am I picked up the phone and said 'yes' to this girl I hardly knew. I thought to myself, "It would be so much easier for my husband to order in room service. It would be so much easier for me to stay in our room until our event that evening. It was so hard to hobble around getting dressed to meet a stranger." I fought with myself because everything I do is such an effort with my broken ankle. Yet, I just had to pick up the phone and say, "I would love to have breakfast"! Why? I live outside the box.

We met for brunch with our husbands at eleven am and parted at two pm. We bonded. Two women. Two grandmas who do not "need" more women in our lives, but who appreciate the value of new experiences at every age.

Teach your children and grandchildren to live outside the box through your example. Their lives will be so much more exciting and successful. And a big "thank you" to my Mom who encouraged my own joie de vivre and sense of adventure!