Tag Archives: Friends

Monday morning is particularly bittersweet this week.

Posted in Family, Friendship, Life Ramblings, Relationships by

This weekend we celebrated with family friends as the youngest of us kids graduated from high school… The baby isn’t a baby anymore.  Nope, he’s now taller than me, plays in a band, and never walks around in a firefighter’s hat anymore, though  my sister and I both swear he had one on his head for most of his childhood.

Graduations used to be our benchmark.  There was one every other year, guaranteeing a good party to mark the passage of time for the last decade.  Now we talk about engagements and weddings and when we’ll all bring babies into the mix.  Obviously the transition has been gradual, but it still feels sudden.  All of the childhood memories of summer nights by a fire now seem just out of reach.

I was given a quilt by a friend of my parents when I graduated from high school many moons ago.  She chose fabrics with patterns that look like they could have made old childhood clothes, playful and fun.  At the time it was given to me I thought it was an odd gift… she was not someone that I was particularly close to.  I didn’t even know she made quilts.  But after my Sophomore year of college, when my apartment building had a massive flood and we had to evacuate, it was the first thing I grabbed.  And yesterday, as I was cuddled on my bed after everyone had left and the apartment was quiet, it was what I pulled over me.

In some ways I’m sad that we’re all grown up now, but mostly, I just feel blessed.  It’s easy to forget all of the people and places that made us who we are, but as we sat around flipping through old photo albums this weekend, it was nice to remember.  I think the older I get, the more I love that quilt, because I realize I am the product of a fabulous collection of memories.  Some of the people in those memories I never see anymore, but they still shaped me, while they were around.

I know we could end up anywhere after this.  We have no idea where we’re going to raise a family.  We don’t even know where we’ll live when the summer ends.  Mostly I just hope we find a place with as many fabulous people as where I grew up.  I want my kids to have people to look back with like we did this weekend, to retell stories with, and to laugh with.

Monday morning is particularly bittersweet this week.

Maybe It Would Be Easier If We All Lived Just Across The Hall

Posted in Friendship, Life Ramblings, Relationships by

One of my girlfriends came over for dinner this last weekend, something that hasn’t happened in a while.  We’re both busy, schedules are crazy, I’m married… there’s a million bad excuses.  But it finally happened, and soon after dinner my husband went back to sleep (the meds they gave him after the accident were still knocking him out.), so we got some time for girl talk.

She asked me if I believe you can go through a quarter life crisis.  How had we never had this conversation before if we’re such good friends?  That’s a really good question.  But we started to vent.  About law school.  Mostly about the people at school.  The bubble of high-school repeating itself that we will never miss, and the people we will.  And then we got to the interesting part, the people who’ve already slipped away.  This part, I’ve been thinking about all week.

Friends come and go.  It’s just a fact of life for most people.  And some friendships, usually the long lasting ones, ebb and flow.  I can go months without talking to my best friend and then call and tell her everything, we just pick it up where we left off.  We talked about how you can’t really have long lasting friendships if you need constant validation you’re still friends.  It doesn’t work, life happens.

We also talked about what I know is one of her biggest annoyances, the girl that ditches her friends for a guy.  To some extent, it always happens.  I know I did it (she’d agree), and in retrospect, I wish I’d done it less.  You get caught up in things, and there’s only so much time.  When you’re free time was already strained being divided between x number of friends, x+1 is going to mean less time for everyone else. And even if you say you’re not going to, you do.  But people do it to varying degrees.  And even if you’ve done it yourself, when someone else is doing it, you want them to be better than that.

I realize now that I didn’t really know how to move in together or get married.  None of my close friends had done it.  I still struggle with trying to figure out what the right balance is and what that looks like when so many of my friends are single.  And that’s only amplified by the fact that I already have no free time.  And by the fact that I met my husband and got engaged so quickly after I moved here and started law school.  I didn’t have roots here.  I had this girlfriend, who I met when I started school, and a few friends in other parts of the cities that didn’t understand why law school was taking over my life.  And then I met this guy… The norm I had found for about three months here was already disrupted.

I don’t really like thinking in terms of regrets, because if you changed how I got to this place in time, you’d change me.  But there are things that I would do differently if I could do them over.  And one of them is how I handle friendships.  Sometimes it’s not even what happened, but what wasn’t said while it was happening.  Maybe I could have tried harder to find more time.  Maybe she could have too.  Either way, I know we could have tried harder to have a straight up conversation about what was going on, what was taking up our time, how a guy was changing things, how new friends were changing things.

I almost wrote off our friendship at one point.  But the thing is, I think we both had the same frustration to an opposite problem.  I couldn’t not be in a relationship to make our friendship easier, just as she wasn’t going to magically be in one.  And if she was only friends with me, it would be natural to still see me in the same setting she saw me alone in.  But my husband was in that group of friends too.  I’m sure it seemed like we were never apart at all.  And when two of our other close friends coupled up… even worse.  I wouldn’t have wanted to be the extra wheel either, but suddenly that meant that the same group that would have hung out all together a year before was uncomfortable now.

For our first year of law school, we were in sections.  We had all of our classes together.  We sat in the same seats. We studied together, and we took exams together.  And then that ends, and you go your own ways and everyone is doing different things and are on different pages… Life is easier when you’re going through everything together.  You have support.  You have understanding.  And you’re all facing up to the same craziness, so no one is left out.  Sometimes I wish life happened in shifts like this.  A whole group of friends met their husbands together, got married together, had kids together… navigating friendships would be so much easier.

I know you don’t have to be going through the same thing to be friends.  But it does give you one more thing to base your friendship on.  I have friends who I was so close to when we were at the same place in our lives, and now it’s a struggle to find things to talk about or do together, because our lives look so different.  And then I have friends who’s lives have never been at the same place as mine, but we had different bases for our friendship: activities, or memories or values or something.  But marriage doesn’t just change what you do when you’re not with friends, it changes how you do friends.

There was a time before I started dating my husband, where I talked to this friend a few times a day.  She was my default person.  I wanted to go see a movie, I usually asked her first.  I felt like going out to grab dinner, I called her up.  Before I knew her, there were other people who had that role at different stages of my life.  And certain people who were defaults for different things.  And that changes with marriage.  Husbands naturally become your default person for most things.  I think they have to… that’s the point. Plus they’re right there.  If mine is sitting on the couch asking what’s for dinner, my first thought isn’t to wonder if someone else would want to grab a pizza.  So even when you do put in effort, it doesn’t amount to the same thing it was before.

Is there a secret to doing the right?  Something I didn’t discover and should have?  Or is change just hard and part of this stage of our lives?  Does it get easier as more of your friends end up with built-in default people too?

A Blogging Adventure In Search of Inspiration

Posted in Inspiration, Life Ramblings by

I thought I knew what I was going to blog about this morning, but it seems I was wrong.  It just isn’t doing it for me.  I got up, sat down at my computer, and instead of writing, I started searching.

Normally, this means I’m procrastinating.  I have a horrible procrastination problem, especially when it comes to writing projects.  I can come up with ways to entertain myself for hours, blowing the time I’ve set aside for writing until there’s so little left, I feel it’s pointless to begin.  But this morning feels different.  I’m searching for inspiration.  And not because I have writer’s block.  Because I have an attitude block.

Yesterday a Professor asked about my husband.  She had heard about his accident and wanted to know how he was doing, and how it happened.  And after I told her, I said something about how I was grateful because it could have been so much worse if he hadn’t stopped, and had been hit head on.  She kind of laughed, and said “spoken like a true optimist.”  I think that moment froze time for me.  I have never, ever been called optimist.  Even on my best days, I think hopeful realist is about as much as I’ll ever get credit for.  And I could feel my mouth opening to correct her, but luckily I caught myself.  Who argues with optimism?  Why was I so quick to reinforce my negativity?

Because I’m in a rut.  An attitude rut.  A writing rut.  A dreaming rut.  A prayer rut.  Oh, and don’t get me started about the health rut…  This rut has made comfort food pop up a little to often around here.

I’ve been operating under the assumption that it’s not worth trying to change until the situation I’m in changes.  But the events of late have reminded me, there’s always something.  I might be right.  Life might seem easier after law school.  Until… the bar?  A family emergency? A new job comes along? We need to move?  A new job doesn’t come along?  Someone gets sick? (See… pessimist is coming out.  I told you!)  Lingering on what could happen usually doesn’t help anything, I realize that.  But it might help one thing.  A realization that life is never going to be perfect and easy.  At least not for long.  Life happens.  Even the good things can be tough sometimes.

So, today I’m interrupting my previously planned blog to take you on a blogging adventure in search of inspiration.  Maybe some inspiration to jump start a change in attitude for me this morning.  Maybe some inspiration to think about what changes I want to make when my situation does change in 45 days.  And maybe, something that inspires me will inspire you, even if you’re not in a rut today.

The Search Begins…

Well, let’s start with what’s right in front of me, on my coffee table.

  

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

This book is on my table because I had a conversation with a girlfriend this weekend about this very topic.  She asked me if she thought it was possible she was going through a quarter life crisis.  I said I was glad she was right there with me. Call it whatever you want (I like to switch it up: rut, crisis, insanity), but the combination of uncertainty and expectation that plagues some mid 20-somethings can make you a little crazy once in a while.  Sometimes it’s fear, sometimes doubt, sometimes sadness, or even anger… It’s hard to know you’ve got potential and have no idea where you’re going with it.

But, I can also venture a guess that anyone no longer in their 20s is thinking, “those were the days.”  The grass is always greener.  And you only get one life, and you might as well be happy during it.  That’s why I recommended this book to her, because I loved it (but couldn’t find it to give it to her right then…)

I’m a neurotic list maker, plan maker and check list maker – just like Gretchen.  And I like in the beginning when she says that she’s not looking for the drastic “Eat, Pray, Love” kind of life makeover that some people crave.  That sounds exciting to me once in a while, but I’m still trying to build a life here.  A life I’m not really ready to give up on yet.  So I just need a mini life makeover.  A me makeover.  I might need to reread this again.  A happiness project of some kind can never be a bad idea, right?

MWF seeking BFF by Rachel Bertsche

Then, there’s the book I could actually find to loan her.  I’ve talked about this one before, so I won’t expound, but it made me think about my friendships and the friendships I need/want in my life.

My friends inspire me all of the time.  I love that about them.

But this book also inspired me to be deliberate about friendships.  To invest more energy into them.  To search out new ones.

Note: in case you don’t know, both of these authors have fabulous blogs on these topics as well.  The pictures should link you to them, in case you’re curious.

These are giraffes.  I think giraffes are incredibly cool animals,  but that’s not why this picture is here.  I took this picture on “safari” in Disney World in January.  I know, The Animal Kingdom is not Africa, and you might be less than impressed by my photography skills (although, this is with an iPhone on a bumpy truck, so I was pretty impressed).  But the reason I put this picture up is I can’t remember the last time I’ve laughed so hard or smiled as much as I did on this little mini expedition.  I was with my husband and my little sister, the two people who matter the most to me, and two other good friends.  And it was just a fabulous day.  You’re never too old to have some fun, and do something different.  I need to remember not to take life too seriously.

I’ve written two novels.  The first one is really not good.  But I’m still proud of it.  I started it when I was really young.  And the experience taught me a lot about how to write the next one.

That next one has a special place in my heart.  I’m not pretending it’s perfect, but it was my baby for a long time.  And despite the fact that I knew the publishing game wasn’t easy, you always kind of hope it will be for you.  And rejection letters sting a bit, even if they’re not mean.  And silence can be frustrating.

But when I need to remember to keep going, I pick up a Harry Potter books.  I remember an interview where she talked about all the rejection letters she got with the first one, some really nasty.  And now there’s a real Platform 9 3/4.  She touched enough people that they made a tribute to the world she created.

It reminds me to keep writing.

 

I really like this.

What can I do today to be that kind of woman?

I’m going to be thinking about that all day.

 

 

More to come as the day goes on…