My Journey With Health And Fitness – The Importance Of Friends

I did a check today on where I am in my activity minutes for the Workout To Conquer Cancer campaign. If you recall I had to do at least 30 minutes of exercise each day for the month of May which would mean by tomorrow I should have logged 930 minutes. Right now, with one day to go, I am at 3,360 minutes. I know I will do another 120 tomorrow but I’ve decided to find a way for an extra 20 minutes so that I make 3,500 minutes. That just shows I have not missed a single day of working out while I am here and I intend to keep it up for the remainder of our stay. It will be the best I have done since doing trips to the condo again in 2022.

My husband and I don’t have a lot of friends. That is not a sad statement in any way because we have a circle of close friends both here in Mexico and at home. I am reminded of how important it is to have that close circle as I look at memories on FB from 2 years ago. It was then that my sister had a major fall, badly breaking her leg. Our neighbour, who is in that close circle of friends, saw the firetruck arrive and immediately went over to see what was going on and then proceeded to keep us up to date. Another good, young friend happened to be there when this happened and made sure to help get my sister’s sugar levels up. Still another good friend and former co-worker drove the 30 miles from Vancouver to pick up our dogs so they weren’t left alone waiting for us to return from the condo and despite the fact she was recovering from a broken kneecap managed to take them on short walks. Those are the friends we want to have.

We have the same here in Mexico. We have a handful of friends that we celebrate the important things with. For example, Tuesday was our 30th anniversary (hence why there was no post) and we couldn’t have asked for a better group to celebrate with us. This even included one friend who had painted a picture of my beloved Mackie, knowing that I still grieve him every day. These are the people that we go to when we have problems while here and the ones that we will also do anything to help if they need it.

I had a close friend the other day talking about people they thought were their friends that really were pretty superficial. I explained that we have 2 levels of friends, those that we would walk through fire for and those we would assist if need be. There is a distinct difference. But in all honesty, it is the first group that is important to us in that they are not just about socializing, they are about being the ones to call on if needed (and the ones that will call on us) and are the ones that really matter. The social group is great but they are not the ones that we would go to if we needed help. They are not the ones that instantly know they have to call to talk me off a ledge and vice versa.

At this point I need to do a bit of a shout out to our neighbours and our coffee group (really this group are my political allies though my husband has grown to appreciate them as well). Being in Mexico for 6 1/2 weeks leaving my low vision sister on her own is challenging. However, the gang has as always come through, along with a few other close friends, to ensure shopping is done, dogs are walked, meetings are attended and socializing is happening. We could never leave my siblings alone at home if it wasn’t for the caring and support that these people are willing to provide.

So look around you at the people you consider friends and determine how important they are to you because in life friendship is about quality, not quantity.