lifted from cheryl manz' blog

was surfing and found this.... could relate A LOT to this!

mikey, lele, and bucket- thanks for being my real people! i love you!


Real People...
i think i got the term from my dad. we'd ask him what he thought of someone and he'd say: "you can trust him, he's real people." or we'd be walking out the door and he would call after us: "remember who you are. we are real people." for a long time i don't think i understood what he was really saying. i didn't comprehend the depth of meaning behind those two words until i hit the rough times. because rough times are when the real people stand the tallest. they are the ones that are by your side no matter what. the ones that are willing to listen and not say a word when you just want to repeat yourself over and over until the answer finally clicks in your own mind. the ones that call to see how you are doing when they know you are having a tough time. the ones that notice when something isn't quite right, even before you say a word. the ones that remain unmoved by your side when you decide to take a stand about something you believe in. the ones that have your back. the ones you can count on being there without even opening your eyes to check.

sometimes, when i'm not sure how to react to something that's happened to one of my friends, or i don't think i'm strong enough to make it through a tough situation, or just when i hesitate to take a stand, i can just hear my dad saying those words over and over in my mind. we need to be real people. we are real people. we will be real people. and i think about all the times when the real people in my life took hits that were meant for me and then stood back up to take more if they thought the blows would keep coming. i think about the times when someone picked up the phone when i called, even though it was the middle of the night and never once said a word about me waking them up or the fact that they needed to get up early in the morning. i remember when they just held me because i was crying too hard to talk. and i think about the fact that it was those same people that laughed with me through the good times, stood by my side and cheered through my successes, the ones that smiled the brightest and cried tears of happiness with me when i received good news. and as i watch them, i find myself longing to be more like them. i remind myself of just how important it is to be like them. to be the kind of person that others can count on. the kind of friend that takes time for the people they care about even when it's not convenient. to be the person that puts aside their own struggles to help a friend through stormy waters. and it's always then that i decide that i'm going to try harder. to really REALLY make an effort to be someone that others could call real people.

the real people in my life are the ones that i would trust no matter what. the ones that i know are on my side. the ones that inspire me. the ones that make me a better, REALER person without even trying. the ones that are patient with me as i work on being real people to them. the ones that understand that real people mess up, even when they try hard...the ones that make me think of what my dad meant when he would use that term to us when we were growing up... everybody needs to have real people in their life. and maybe if we all tried harder to BE real people, some of the heartache and rough times could be avoided. maybe we wouldn't care so much about who people are or who became successful faster or who has been where or who has the better life...

because i'm pretty sure that real people don't care about that kind of stuff...