Sunday, January 11, 2015

Seeking the Positive

I am even more amazed at my friend Alicia than I was when we met last week.

She married a man she loved and went through the agony of the breakup and divorce. She is suffering from rheumatoid arthritis which confines her to a wheelchair currently. She was well off with her husband but he irresponsibly invested much of their savings and since the divorce she has been reduced to living in a basement studio apartment.

She has changed from the confident, tall, elegant girl I knew as a teenager into a small, frail thing - but her spirit is not reduced, she is as warm and uplifting as I remember her being. Just being with her lifts me out of my funk; I don’t know how she does it. She has lived in the world and is now forced to live a very restricted life and it has not closed her off or made her bitter. She has a disposition to turn towards the good, always; I wish I had that, I wish we all did. What a world that would be.

When her arthritis lets her, she knits and crochets beautiful items and sells them through a local shop here. It's amazing what she can make with yarn and some sticks, I'm very impressed. We've got a date in a few days where she is going to try to teach me how to knit. I've warned her that it has been tried before and hasn't stuck but she's keen to try and I'd love to be able to do it, so.... we'll see!

It's really good to feel like I have a friend here. I was worried I would be quite lonely in Bath, but it's turning out to be much more pleasant here than expected!

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