Category Archives: life

Am I officially grown-up yet?

Peter Pan

 

Yesterday was my 33rd Birthday.

It’s funny though, when I look in the mirror, I don’t see myself as a grown-up, despite the fact that I’ve been married for almost 8 years, have 3 kids and have lost my mom. For some odd reason, I just keep thinking that one morning I am going to wake up and *bam* I’ll feel like a grown-up.

I’ve been to college and grad school, have had a mortgage and I drive a minivan. And sure, when I look in the mirror I can see little fine lines around the eyes, and I’m carrying an extra, say, 20 lbs. My hair is going gray (and I am letting it!) and pregnancy has left me with some amazing varicose veins. Despite all of those facts and physical signs, it just seems like yesterday that I was IN high school, making grand plans about what I was going to be when I grew up.

But you know what?

Maybe it’s not a bad thing that I don’t see myself as a grown-up.

This weekend, I was listening to “RadioLab” on NPR and they were talking about liars. The final segment was about people who, essentially, lie to themselves tend to be more successful and, generally, happier than those who don’t.  So maybe that’s the deal, I don’t see myself as a grown-up because I refuse to acknowledge that fact.

I’ve been working on being happier in general. To look more on the bright side of life, rather than the sad, stark reality of life. To be OK imparting a bit on whimsy into the lives of my kids with the magic of Santa Claus, The Tooth Fairy and (maybe) the Easter Bunny. (The Easter Bunny is hard because it’s hard to explain the Easter Bunny within the context of the Christian celebration of Easter. That, and my kids are TERRIFIED of the Easter Bunny.)

So, book me a first-class ticket to the Second Star on the Right. Neverland, here I come.

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When did making friends get to be so hard?

It seems like when you are a kid, making friends is mindless. You go up to another kid, say “Do you want to play?” and you are off.

Why is it so much harder when you are an adult?

The Bear has been in Kindergarten for almost a month and I just recently started hanging out with another mom. Her oldest is in kindergarten, she has a 2 year old, is expecting her third and is Catholic… so running a life parallel to mine. But the funny thing is that we pretty much spent the first month of drop offs and pick ups vetting each other out.

Are we so afraid of rejection that we fear putting ourselves out there?

Are we suspicious of the other person’s motives?

Has life just jaded us?

There was an article in the NYTimes a few months ago that talked about this same thing. From the article:

As external conditions change, it becomes tougher to meet the three conditions that sociologists since the 1950s have considered crucial to making close friends: proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other, said Rebecca G. Adams, a professor of sociology and gerontology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. This is why so many people meet their lifelong friends in college, she added.

Proximity.

Repeated, Unplanned Interactions.

A setting that encourages people to let their guard down.

In my experience, I’d have to add longevity to the formula. So far, in our seven year marriage, the hubs and I have moved 3 time: to Chicago (right after marriage,) to St. Louis (in 2007,) and Pasadena (in 2011.) While I am happy and blessed to have friends in each of these cities, it almost speeds up the friend making process when you are not sure how long you are going to be in a city!

We need friends. OK, I need friends. I just wish it was as easy to make friends in real life as it is on the Internet!

(Psst! Anne over at Modern Mrs. Darcy wrote about this same article. Talk about coincidence, especially since she is an Internet friend. Go and read her take on it!)

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Reason, Season or Lifetime

I have a hard time with change, especially the changes within friendships. If I had my way, I would stay in perfect contact with every friend I had ever made in all of my life and we would go way back and have wonderful memories.

But it’s not really that way, is it?

God had it in His plan for me to marry a man whose job would move our family every few years. This means that I am constantly making new friends and saying good-bye to old friends. Some of us talk on the phone, some of us write letters, or talk via Skype but most of our friendships stay connected via FaceBook.

Sure, the advent of FaceBook does make it “easier” to stay in touch but has FaceBook made the eventual death of friendships that much harder to deal with? My In-Laws traveled a very similar path to what DH and I are traveling. They moved from Wausau WI to Portland OR, back to WI, then to Los Angeles, to MN, back to WI, to Chicago and have settled in WI. They still hang on to a few dear couple friends, exchanging Christmas Cards, attending Children’s Weddings, and without FaceBook, holding solid to a friendship separated by miles and miles of land.

Every year, around Christmas time, I begin the job of sending the Christmas Cards and every year I contemplate eliminating some friends from the list. I think about the people I haven’t actually spoken to over the past year or people I hadn’t seen in years and from there it would be logical to eliminate them. But, with FaceBook, I am able to “talk” to people from years past… does that mean that we are still friends?

It’s said that friends can come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. Maybe we have forgotten that some friendships are destined to run their course and then fade away and that some friendships are meant to be forever. We shouldn’t feel bad that a friendship has ended, that’s just the way it goes. Maybe instead of mourning the loss of the friendship, we should look at how that friendship changed us (hopefully for the better!) Maybe instead of feeling bad because we don’t talk to that person anymore, we should think about the gifts that the person gave to us over the course of their friendship.

My BFF from High School is the Godmother to my DD1. She and I haven’t spoken now in close to a year. She and her family have moved to the border of Nebraska and Wyoming. I couldn’t tell you what’s been going on in her life because I honestly don’t know. And to tell the truth, this is one friendship I just can’t bear to let go, but maybe it is already gone. And I think I know why: She gave me family. Growing up, my home life was rough. Full of strife and tension, alcohol and violence. When I needed a place of refuge, I headed to Lisa’s house. Lisa’s parents were my parents. Her siblings, my siblings. Lisa represented stability in an unstable world. That’s why I can’t bear to let Lisa go.

Reason, Season or Lifetime.

Some friends enter your life for a specific reason. God put them in your life to fulfill some duty and when that duty was done, so were they. Some friends enter your life for a season, it may be high school or college, maybe they were your first work mates or the women with whom you shared a first pregnancy. God put them there for that season and when the season changed, so did the relationship. Other friends are there for a lifetime. But the thing is, with lifetime friends, you won’t know that they are lifetime friends until… well, the end of your life.

Is any one state of friendship better than another?

I don’t think so because every friends that ever came into my life was placed there for a specific purpose. And I know, I needed every type of friend.
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