I've had quite a few friends talk about reading my blog. I've been blessed to know wonderful people in my lifetime. One of the biggest re-creations that I am going through is what do I "need" in terms of friendship and community. For the past 20 years, my friends have been primarily the mothers of my kids' friends. How pathetic is that? I can't help it. I didn't make the rules, I just follow them. It just works out that way. Who else is going to be on the soccer field at 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning freezing their butts off? Who else is going to be sitting at a band concert that never ever ends? These are your peeps and the only people who understand the love-hate relationship you have with your child being "involved" in school.
I'm not a collector of people. I don't tend to go through phases of my life and carry people with me. I left my high school and never looked back. I left college and other than one very dear friend who I literally took to Phoenix (okay, she really took me but it doesn't flow as well), I never looked back. My single friends in Phoenix got left behind when I went to graduate school and other than John who I married, I left all of those as well. My point is......I'm not a collector of people. I don't have a lot of family either (I'm sensing a common denominator here). My parents are long gone and my brothers and I don't really have much of a relationship. I just move through life experiencing people in the present and then I'm gone. It isn't that people in my life have not been worthy of being collected. Not at all...its just how I'm wired.
So as I age and I think about my life, it makes sense that I am wondering what my needs are with regard to friendship and /or community. My best friend in the world is in Phoenix. Di and I have been friends since Jake was almost 1. We were at home mommy friends who talked on the phone constantly (no cell phones back then ) so we were tied to the cord. It is wonderful for me to have someone that has a history with me. She watched my kids grow from the beginning. She is Charlie's godmother and I don't think I would have survived Charlie's first week of life in intensive care without her and Dave (hubby at the time). We have been through 6 kids, 3 divorces, a child who became a drug addict, one who chose a military life, one who is waiting to choose and one who just headed off to college. We have lost boyfriends, husbands, sold houses, bought houses and worked our asses off. All that needs to pass between us in a text is........"U good?" I love that history. I love that sense of being beyond "friends" and merging that family/friend feeling. I trust her. I know she will always be there. She is like a sister that I didn't have to hate for a period of time to appreciate.
I have girlfriends that for some reason I can't get rid of. They are these young and beautiful teachers from my last job. They are having their own little girls and I can't seem to get enough of them. I want to spend time with the "big girls and the little girls" as I call them. I see so much joy in the next generation. I have met the young women who will be running the world when I can't and they are named Halle, Ella and Taylor! Watch out. When I really need to recharge, find me a group of teachers from Carlisle and let me yak with them while their little kiddos are running around and if there is a baby to hold (and there usually is), I'm in heaven.
I moved here to CF for my own children to attend NU. It was a good idea but I'm not building a life here. I'm not making a connection to the community and I'm still only talking to the mother's of my kids' friends. This is not my "home". It wasn't my plan for it to be this way, it just is working out that way. I work in a different community and believe me when I tell you that I certainly am not home there. With the changes I'm bringing to that community, I try to be out of town by sundown. So I'm thinking about moving back to Des Moines when Rachel is done at NU. I need a sense of connection, of grounding that doesn't exist for me here. I've also toyed with the idea of moving back to my hometown. There is something incredibly "Lion Kingish" about ending your life where you started it but not having stayed in the middle.
The hard reality is that after a certain age you can no longer really create history with someone or build much of a community. Time just isn't on your side. They never tell you that growing up. They never tell you that to build the kind of loyalty and love and depth in a friendship, you have to have time and that's the one commodity that you don't have as much of after 50. I think I would have tried harder to collect people.
"If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up"
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10....I hope I have someone to help me up.
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