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It’s been my goal to make more Mommy friends. Being a Stay at home Mom can be isolating and friends are a must. I have been reflecting on my past friendships and why I’m no longer friends with certain people. I went to three different elementary schools, three different middle schools and two different high schools and moved at least 10 times during my childhood from the ages 5-18. What does that have to do with friends? Well I made friends but never kept the same friends due to moving so often. I knew after a while not to get close because I never knew when we would up and move.
It was often that sudden, I would come home from school and see boxes and just know that everything in my life would be crazy again. A new school again… it’s so hard always being the new kid and I was shy to begin with so this just made me go further into my shell. I have always been the type to have one or two close friends rather than a huge group of people; I had a best friend growing up as she was the one constant in my life. We lost touch when we were in our 20’s.
I had a male best friend. We met in 9th grade, then again in high school and he walked me down the aisle when I got married (the 1st time), even though our friendship weathered some issues, he was my very best friend. We vacationed in the Bahamas together and then he met his future wife and she was uncomfortable and felt threatened by me. It got weird. I made a mistake and long story short we don’t talk anymore. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about him. I have always hoped we could get back in touch somehow, someway.
I have had other friends but I’m not friends with them anymore. For some of those situations it’s a good thing… sometimes you outgrow friendships or they can get toxic. But the common denominator in all of this is me… So why am I so good at making friends but lousy at keeping them? It makes me think about what it takes to sustain a friendship. So I’m sending vibes out to the universe. I want a friend. I meet Moms at play groups, we talk, and exchange emails… chat about getting together. But creating a friendship takes time.
I have had a lot of friendships over the years. The friendships definitely change when the friend moves away. You still care about each other, but it is not the same. I have had three very close friends move away in the past three years — all three announcing their moves right around Christmas, one year after another. It’s hard.
I try to remember that some friendships are there for the long haul and others come into my life for a season. I feel very blessed to have shared a closeness with someone, even if that closeness does not last forever.
It sounds like you have some good “friend potential” with your Moms Group. Perhaps some of them feel the same need for a deeper friendship but don’t know how to do it. Try inviting one of them out to lunch or for coffee, and talk about things that matter.
I don’t know how old your children are. If they are young and still take naps, try inviting a Moms Group friend over at naptime. Tell her to bring along a pack and play. I did that for years with a friend. My son would nap in a pack and play while her child napped in her room. Meanwhile, we moms hung out, watching TV and talking. It was the start of the closest friendship that I have ever have.
Take care,
- Faith
Lauri-
I have always had lots of friends. My beginnings are different than yours (I still live 20 minutes from the home I grew up in. I’ve always had close best friends, friends that run in big groups and still keep in contact with friends from first grade).
However, even with very differnt childhoods you and I seem to be in the same place now in terms of friendships. I too have had some come and go and some that I have left because they are toxic. And now I find that although I have lots and lots of different friends, I have just started to get some closer friends here in our neighorhood. So while I still have many friends that I have a long history with, I don’t see them on a daily basis and I just miss that. I joke to my husband that I am the most popular lonely person I know. I really crave having friends that I can talk about anything with and who will just talk to me about nothing for long periods of time.
One of my newer friends and I were just talking about this last week – that being a stay-at-home mom can be hard from a friendship level (which I never would have guessed) – in some ways it can feel very “high school” sitting out here in the suburbs.
I so appreciate my new friends. My advice – go out for drinks with the husbands. That is how we finally found “our kind” of people. Also, my mom always taught us that friends come and go, but family is forever.