Photo Credit: Koshyk via Compfight cc
This week’s prompt is Friend
It’s so easy for children to make friends. They are the same size or playing with the same kind of toy and suddenly they have a bond. I remember the days of meeting someone randomly and suddenly realizing that we had a lot in common. Sadly, it doesn’t come to easily as adults. I remember reading a New York Times study that said that making friends after age 30 is notoriously hard. You tend to have casual acquaintances maybe a couple of friends but not the kind of bonds that are created in childhood and young adulthood. Life gets in the way. We become friends with people who have kids the same age as ours. Sometimes we don’t have much else in common. Then we spend much of our effort planning around bedtimes, naptimes, school and extra curricular activities.
My husband can count on one hand the number of friends he has and most of them are from childhood and early young adulthood. He’s loyal that way. I have lost touch with most of my school friends. Though I maintain contact with a few, we are not as close as we once were. I’ve only made a handful of new friends since my daughter was born. The ones we’ve invited the dinner. The ones I called after my miscarriage and on the anniversary of when my due date should have been. Now I find myself in the third decade of my life and everyone around me is surrounded by a cloud of busyness. Dinners or nights out must be scheduled months in advance, only to be cancelled at the lasts minute when a child gets sick or another family emergency occurs. It once took me five months to reschedule a cancelled dinner.
We can blame a culture of isolation, or lack of proper community pride, busyness or lack of hospitality in the church. But the end result is the same. Women desperate for relationships and feeling like they are in this parenting thing alone. I’m blessed to have a mother and a sister in my life. Though, as I jokingly like to say, who do I go to when I need to complain about them? Building friendships is never easy, at least for me. But I keep trying because I know deep down inside that it’s worth the effort.
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You have really spelled out the issues of finding friends as we get older. I, too, have lost touch with most past friends, though recently an old friend found me!
When life intervenes, it can be, as you say, so difficult to really schedule and keep any sort of invitation.
I am glad you have your mother and sister as your friends.
I’ve made some internet friends; folks whose path I never would have crossed otherwise. They represent a different sort of friendship, but one that can be as strong, fun, helpful, “there for you” as real world friends.
I’m glad I had the opportunity to visit your blog, and I will definitely be back!
I too have been lucky enough to find kindred souls through the blogosphere. Technology is an amazing tool for sustaining friendship as well. Thanks so much for stopping by! I have developed a circle of casual friends but I do miss the closeness of a best friend.
There is a comfortableness with a best friend, like worn in blue jeans.
I miss the friends I have back home; we keep in touch but I miss the hugs!
I hope you find a best friend soon.
wow…Dear I”m so sorry that you don’t have a good girl friend…or a consistent time to meet with one, but I am glad you have a close sister and mom…i do too and I treasure that friendship always…I know what you mean about anticipating the gathering of close friends and it only gets latered because of a sickness or something unexpected…disheartening…i have a very close friend from high school that I never get to see, but I send her snail mail…its our connection…its so nice to receive letters from her and know we still care about each others lives…another one I send books to and she sends her favorite reads to me and we text each other about how good they were… It can be simple but sometimes snail mail is more of a connection..more satisfying… I hope God sends you a heart friend soon…maybe today!
I’m blessed to have many ladies that I am social with. I don’t undervalue that at all. But there is something about those life long friendships, the kind that you can always come back to, that I miss. Thank you so much for stopping by.
We really have become a society of busyiness. I know that is one of the main reasons I rarely hear from “old” friends that I used to talk to a lot via phone or hang with in person. Those friendships have become more of an only text occasionally or email. I want to turn back the clocks to before smart phones and texting sometimes just to see if real, more intimate connections would still exist :). That being said, ironically the friends that are the truest now..the ones I can call whenever I need to talk about ANYthing. Sorrows , joy, feelings, etc., are people with common interests that I have met online via writing workshops or blogging. It is interesting to me how these people are the ones that are there celebrating and sharing life with me, while the real life relationships go adrift to the sea of busy. The internet is great for bringing groups of similar people together that way! I am content and happy with my life, and yet I relate to what you write here and sometimes long for those in real life, get together and share deep bonds best girl friends. We moved so much growing up, that I found it especially hard to have that lifelong best friend bond that some people have when they have grown up in one place together since childhood. Stopping by from FMF! Have a great weekend! I enjoyed reading what you wrote.
Thanks for stopping by, Rebekah. It is interesting how technology is a double edged sword when it comes to relationships, both bringing us together in some ways and distancing us in others.
Ah man- adult friendships are so hard!!! I miss the days of easy relationships!!
Dropping by from FMF!