Birthday Walk With Marque

Today I had a birthday walk with my new friend Marque. I say "new" because we've been friends for a couple months now. I think it was around September when I did that workshop at a conference - that was about the time we discovered that we connected well. He's an incredibly refreshing guy to talk with because he's honest and he's real and I love talking with him because neither of us have to put up any kind of charade about ourselves. We can just be who we are - and that's simply acceptable. Comfortable, even.

This is a friendship along my journey that i've wanted to be intentional about developing because he's such a great guy to have as part of one's social support network - as a friend. Today we went on a "birthday walk" - but really it just marked the first of our routinely Monday evening walks along the beach and parts of Long Beach. We both have talked about being more active so we decided to start walking together. It'll give us a context to continue growing in our friendship and it'll also keep us accountable to getting our exercise in. I'm so much better at keeping appointments and so if I know he's counting on me showing up, then I will. But if I didn't have that meeting set, then i'd likely and typically flake on myself thinking, "oh i'm tired. i'll just exercise tomorrow" - which i've done and said to myself plenty of times.

So this was a good connection. I call it a "birthday walk" because we're both journeying together. All of these birthday connections that i'm hoping to have this week isn't about celebrating "me" per se - rather, it's about celebrating the relationships that God has given to me.

So Marque is a gift and I thank God for him. =)