Mother's advice

In my growing up years, I longed to have friends.  I envied fictional character Nancy Drew's friendship with Bess and George and Trixie Belden's close relationship with her adopted brother Jim and her friend Honey.  I was awkward and introverted and never knew the proper thing to say. I lived outside the city.  Today I eat dinner with two friends every Wednesday. My husband and I visited a store yesterday and enjoyed ourselves.  He has a hearing impairment so conversing is difficult.  I am making more effort to nurture friendships.  I reach out with text messages.  I discovered that I can gather more information if I listen to someone, even though I know what they are going to tell me.  I compliment people so that they feel special.  The challenge is that  I work alone at a store so I am by myself.  When I go out for a walk, I am by myself with two dog companions.  I realized today that when I have the opportunity to reach out that I am following my mother's advice from long ago. "In order to have friends, you have to be a friend."