improve my relationships

but this year, I’ll be working on and with the relationships of my in-town family and friends. Lots of events coming up that prevent me from going down to the old hometown of San Diego.

visiting my brother and nephews at Christmastime?

I also dropped in to visit Ricky, my nephew, and Marvin, my brother, a few weeks ago on my way to Phoenix.

It was really nice. We played Monopoly. I love Monopoly.

Yes, I know, don’t faint. My brother is so excited, he’s planning what to do when I get there. So far he’s mentioned: cooking toll house cookies, showing me a DVD of doo-woppers singing music, dragging me along to his birthday party (or perhaps making me pick up people along the way, I’m not sure), and, of course, look at all his rooms again. I mean, you can’t have too many Elvis-devoted rooms in your house.

As I think harder about this one goal, I have to get down to names and actual relationships. I need to work at (geez, do you really have to work at a relationship? Yes.) getting closer to these people: (1) My nephew’s nephew. (2) My brother. (3) My brother’s other two sons. How do I do this? I’m not sure. Talk to them? Discuss their goals? Put aside time to meet with them, for sure, even though they live 600 miles away. I think I can do 1 and 2, but I’m not sure about number 3.

I want to work on my relationships, improve my communication with my family members (both those who are born into my family and those whom I’ve adopted as family) and my dear friends. I want to share emotional experiences to a greater depth with them. This may never be a goal I take off my list, but I feel I should list it to remind myself how important it is as a daily goal.