In the Tree house: The Beginning
You hear things everyday when you talk to people, watch TV, or listen to the radio. Some things make you laugh, some things hurt your feelings, some things don’t even register, but some things that you hear, stick with you for a lifetime.
Every day is different from the next. You could be at a certain “place” in your life when you hear something that stays with you forever, or the situation could be completely different and that same statement may not have an effect on you any other day.
I was at certain point in my life; I like to call it the “turning point”. And by that I mean, I was finally figuring out who I was and what mattered to me most in my life, for lack of a better cliché I was “coming of age”. At the time I was dating a man (who turned out to be my wonderful husband), and I was visiting him one weekend, when a friend of his, a female about 15 years my senior immediately took to me and we hit it off as if we had been friends our entire lives.
Later that evening, she and I sat in the living room just chewing the fat and getting to know one another, as she and my husband had been friends for a long time and knew everything about each other. We talked about our life experiences, and things in our lives that had impacted us in positive ways and negative ways. All of the sudden she started to giggle; inquisitively I asked her what was on her mind. She told me that she and her best gal pal call those kinds of chit chat sessions being “In the tree house”. So I asked her to explain a bit further… she began telling me that it originated from when her son was a teenager, and as most of us moms know, teenagers, especially boy teenagers tend to shut down and alienate dear old mom from their lives. But she and her son came up with a system called being “In the Tree house” where they would talk for about 30 minutes every so often so she could stay abreast of what was going on in his life, without making him feel like he was under a hot lamp during a police interrogation.
And so she took that special time and shared this iconic term with her friends. So their special time of talking, leaning on each other’s shoulders, or having a good laugh is what I have adopted into my own life as “In the Tree house” time.
In fact my husband and I have adopted this method of communicating. We all get so wrapped up in work, the kids, “what’s for dinner”….just life. And he and I as a team recognize that, and appreciate that, but we also recognize the fact that if we don’t take time to communicate, I mean really talk about what is on our minds, then we also recognize the fact that things in our lives could really spiral out of control. So we always set time aside for our “In the Tree house” talks.
We are all strong and independent people. But sometimes, we have people that come in to our lives leave an imprint on our hearts and souls and teach us something about ourselves that we never knew. And being “In the Tree house” has taught me how to be more introspective, a more fun way to talk to my girlfriends, and a great way to relate to my friends, children and my husband.
So the next time you are huddled in a cozy setting with your girlfriends with a glass of wine, call to order some “Tree house Time”.
Hence the name of my column, this is the opportunity for me to express to you all things that I have learned from my daily life and a chance for you to write in and share some of your life experiences with me. I look forward to our “Tree house Time” and how we can learn from our life experiences together.
