thoughts on friendship
So this post is the more thought out explanation for the frustration I mentioned in my last post with our difficulty in getting together with old friends lately. Not that I think you were all hanging on the edge of your seats waiting for follow up or anything, just more for my own processing. :)
(also, just want to say- I didn't mean to sound flip about being "done" with the friends who cancelled plans with us last Friday. I am a pretty loyal person and don't take ending a friendship lightly and I wouldn't want it to appear differently. These friends have repeatedly over the past two years declined/ cancelled/blown off plans with us. It can only happen so many times before a girl gets a little frustrated. Also, the friends I mentioned are not even aware that I have a blog, so there is no chance that those words were read by them. )
The topic of friendship has been on my mind a lot lately. For the past six months or so, I've been thinking about adult friendship: the ways that adults make friends, the many different levels/ kinds of friendship, questions about when it is time to let a dying friendship go, etc. I could write a small novel on the thoughts I've had on this topic. I am also drawn to fiction about adult female friendships lately.
I don't know if I find myself thinking about this topic more than the average girl because we've moved so much over my adult life, but I think it has something to do with it. My life and consequent friendships have been in constant change since high school. Whether I chose it or not, the pattern of my life has become to move every few years. Because of this, I had high school friends, then college friends, then new to St. Louis/ first teaching job friends, then Indiana friends, then Tennessee friends, and now second-time-in- STL friends (which, to my surprise, are completely different than my first-time-in STL friends.) That is a lot of friendships to have made in a twenty year time span. I've been fortunate to have made at least two really great friends in each place that I have lived and I don't take this lightly. Some of these friendships have endured over time and distance and some are starting to fade. The fading makes me sad.
I've heard many people say that your thirties are hard on friendships- that most of us are so busy with jobs and kids and spouses and life that we don't prioritize our friendships and they take a beating. It seems that even the friends you've kept since high school suddenly have a hard time competing with the everyday chaos that can sometimes feel like life at this age. This is what I meant by the statement that your mid-thirties feels like the place where old friendships go to die.
These days it feels like a major accomplishment if I am able to successfully make and follow through with plans with friends. It is without exaggeration that I say at least half of the plans we have end up getting cancelled, either by us or by the other party. Sick kids, traveling spouses, child-centered obligations, exhaustion from a busy week at work… it seems that time with friends always gets put last on the list. I have gotten to the point where I am more surprised if plans actually happen than I am when they are cancelled. I was saying this to a friend last week (who called to share her frustration in the difficulty in getting our high school group of friends together for a weekend away), and she said in incredulation, "When did we become the people who don't care if we get together or not?!? We used to make it a priority and now I feel like everyone has just given up."
The group she was describing is a group of friends that Ben and I have stayed close with since high school. The group has changed just a bit over the years, but for the most part, we remained a close group despite living in different places for college and then jobs. For at least a decade after college, we still all met up regularly- we went out, we took weekend trips to visit one another, we took vacations and getaways together. We made it work.
Now with older kids and their schedules, difficulty in finding overnight childcare, and work obligations, we get together less and less frequently. In fact, the annual canoe trip and our annual Memorial Day weekend in Indianapolis that was a given for years and years wasn't even discussed this year. We keep saying how much we want to all get together to go away for the weekend again (the last one was to Nashville when Katie was just a little baby), but is is so very hard to find a weekend that works and to arrange childcare now that we all have kids. It sadly feels like we've all kind of given up on the idea.
It is not just this group of friends that I feel drifting apart. I have not been able to see some good friends from Zionsville in a couple of years. I haven't seen anyone from Knoxville since we moved. My book club was discussing friendship a while back and I was sharing my sadness in these fading friendships. The friendships are not fading because my feelings for my friends have changed in any way, they are fading simply because of geography. It is hard to maintain a close friendship with someone who lives four or nine hours away, especially when you are both busy mothers of young children. How strange it is, though, that one of these women in particular was such a good friend that it used to feel odd if a few days passed without us seeing one another, and now it has been at least six months since we've talked on the phone and two years since we've seen one another. When I mentioned this at book club, one of my friends very wisely suggested that instead of feeling sad that these women are no longer close friends of mine, I should feel grateful for having had their friendship at the time in my life that I did. This was such a great way to think about it that it changed my viewpoint almost completely.
I have been so lucky to have made some wonderful friends since we moved back to St. Louis. I do not want this post to come across as sad or as a "poor me" kind of post. I don't feel as if I don't have friends in my life. I just feel sadness that so many of the old friendships that I was able to maintain for years seem to be having a hard time surviving these days. (The friend I mentioned that we have pretty much given up on getting together with anymore has been a friend of ours since college.) This post, while personal in nature, seemed worth sharing simply because many of the friends I've talked to about this topic feel the same way. We all seem to want a group of close friends we can get together with often on the weekends. We all seem to want a girlfriend we can call up on a moment's notice to go grab a coffee and do a little shopping. We all seem to want another couple to cookout with or go out to dinner with or just get together to play cards with. (which just has me wondering- if this is something we all want, why is it so hard to find?)
Last Sunday morning Ben had the rest of the family at home with him while I took Gracie to her softball game. I arrived at the park, spread out my blanket in the sunshine, and sat down with the coffee treat I had just picked up on the way. Another mom who I have enjoyed getting to know this season came over and spread her blanket out next to mine. We talked and got to know each other better for two hours as Gracie's team played. It was really nice. As I left, though, I had the thought that as wonderful as she was, it would have been even better to have had two hours in the sunshine catching up with an old friend rather than making small talk with a new friend. It feels as if the friends you spend time with in your mid-thirties are the people who live near you and have kids about the same age as your kids. Is this just a fact of life?
This post is becoming quite lengthy and the little three year old chatterbox next to me is making it hard to feel like I am forming coherent sentences. I don't feel as if I have reached any clarification on the subject, but do at least feel like I've given a better explanation for the statements I made in the last post. If you feel like sharing your thoughts on adult friendship, I'd love to hear them- I really, really would.
Do you feel like you've been successful at maintaining friendships over time and distance? Do you have a best friend or a couple that you/ you and your spouse can get together with in a low pressure, easy way? Do you still have the same friendships you had a decade ago? Are the people you spend the most time with your coworkers/ neighbors/ parents of your kid's friends?
(also, just want to say- I didn't mean to sound flip about being "done" with the friends who cancelled plans with us last Friday. I am a pretty loyal person and don't take ending a friendship lightly and I wouldn't want it to appear differently. These friends have repeatedly over the past two years declined/ cancelled/blown off plans with us. It can only happen so many times before a girl gets a little frustrated. Also, the friends I mentioned are not even aware that I have a blog, so there is no chance that those words were read by them. )
The topic of friendship has been on my mind a lot lately. For the past six months or so, I've been thinking about adult friendship: the ways that adults make friends, the many different levels/ kinds of friendship, questions about when it is time to let a dying friendship go, etc. I could write a small novel on the thoughts I've had on this topic. I am also drawn to fiction about adult female friendships lately.
I don't know if I find myself thinking about this topic more than the average girl because we've moved so much over my adult life, but I think it has something to do with it. My life and consequent friendships have been in constant change since high school. Whether I chose it or not, the pattern of my life has become to move every few years. Because of this, I had high school friends, then college friends, then new to St. Louis/ first teaching job friends, then Indiana friends, then Tennessee friends, and now second-time-in- STL friends (which, to my surprise, are completely different than my first-time-in STL friends.) That is a lot of friendships to have made in a twenty year time span. I've been fortunate to have made at least two really great friends in each place that I have lived and I don't take this lightly. Some of these friendships have endured over time and distance and some are starting to fade. The fading makes me sad.
I've heard many people say that your thirties are hard on friendships- that most of us are so busy with jobs and kids and spouses and life that we don't prioritize our friendships and they take a beating. It seems that even the friends you've kept since high school suddenly have a hard time competing with the everyday chaos that can sometimes feel like life at this age. This is what I meant by the statement that your mid-thirties feels like the place where old friendships go to die.
These days it feels like a major accomplishment if I am able to successfully make and follow through with plans with friends. It is without exaggeration that I say at least half of the plans we have end up getting cancelled, either by us or by the other party. Sick kids, traveling spouses, child-centered obligations, exhaustion from a busy week at work… it seems that time with friends always gets put last on the list. I have gotten to the point where I am more surprised if plans actually happen than I am when they are cancelled. I was saying this to a friend last week (who called to share her frustration in the difficulty in getting our high school group of friends together for a weekend away), and she said in incredulation, "When did we become the people who don't care if we get together or not?!? We used to make it a priority and now I feel like everyone has just given up."
The group she was describing is a group of friends that Ben and I have stayed close with since high school. The group has changed just a bit over the years, but for the most part, we remained a close group despite living in different places for college and then jobs. For at least a decade after college, we still all met up regularly- we went out, we took weekend trips to visit one another, we took vacations and getaways together. We made it work.
Now with older kids and their schedules, difficulty in finding overnight childcare, and work obligations, we get together less and less frequently. In fact, the annual canoe trip and our annual Memorial Day weekend in Indianapolis that was a given for years and years wasn't even discussed this year. We keep saying how much we want to all get together to go away for the weekend again (the last one was to Nashville when Katie was just a little baby), but is is so very hard to find a weekend that works and to arrange childcare now that we all have kids. It sadly feels like we've all kind of given up on the idea.
It is not just this group of friends that I feel drifting apart. I have not been able to see some good friends from Zionsville in a couple of years. I haven't seen anyone from Knoxville since we moved. My book club was discussing friendship a while back and I was sharing my sadness in these fading friendships. The friendships are not fading because my feelings for my friends have changed in any way, they are fading simply because of geography. It is hard to maintain a close friendship with someone who lives four or nine hours away, especially when you are both busy mothers of young children. How strange it is, though, that one of these women in particular was such a good friend that it used to feel odd if a few days passed without us seeing one another, and now it has been at least six months since we've talked on the phone and two years since we've seen one another. When I mentioned this at book club, one of my friends very wisely suggested that instead of feeling sad that these women are no longer close friends of mine, I should feel grateful for having had their friendship at the time in my life that I did. This was such a great way to think about it that it changed my viewpoint almost completely.
I have been so lucky to have made some wonderful friends since we moved back to St. Louis. I do not want this post to come across as sad or as a "poor me" kind of post. I don't feel as if I don't have friends in my life. I just feel sadness that so many of the old friendships that I was able to maintain for years seem to be having a hard time surviving these days. (The friend I mentioned that we have pretty much given up on getting together with anymore has been a friend of ours since college.) This post, while personal in nature, seemed worth sharing simply because many of the friends I've talked to about this topic feel the same way. We all seem to want a group of close friends we can get together with often on the weekends. We all seem to want a girlfriend we can call up on a moment's notice to go grab a coffee and do a little shopping. We all seem to want another couple to cookout with or go out to dinner with or just get together to play cards with. (which just has me wondering- if this is something we all want, why is it so hard to find?)
Last Sunday morning Ben had the rest of the family at home with him while I took Gracie to her softball game. I arrived at the park, spread out my blanket in the sunshine, and sat down with the coffee treat I had just picked up on the way. Another mom who I have enjoyed getting to know this season came over and spread her blanket out next to mine. We talked and got to know each other better for two hours as Gracie's team played. It was really nice. As I left, though, I had the thought that as wonderful as she was, it would have been even better to have had two hours in the sunshine catching up with an old friend rather than making small talk with a new friend. It feels as if the friends you spend time with in your mid-thirties are the people who live near you and have kids about the same age as your kids. Is this just a fact of life?
This post is becoming quite lengthy and the little three year old chatterbox next to me is making it hard to feel like I am forming coherent sentences. I don't feel as if I have reached any clarification on the subject, but do at least feel like I've given a better explanation for the statements I made in the last post. If you feel like sharing your thoughts on adult friendship, I'd love to hear them- I really, really would.
Do you feel like you've been successful at maintaining friendships over time and distance? Do you have a best friend or a couple that you/ you and your spouse can get together with in a low pressure, easy way? Do you still have the same friendships you had a decade ago? Are the people you spend the most time with your coworkers/ neighbors/ parents of your kid's friends?
Comments
Your ability to put into words those thoughts that are on many people's mind, never cease to amaze and impress me. (gushing father words).
I am quite certain that moving area to area so many times has had an effect on the friend relationship. That being said, my personal observation is that people who never move, experience those same changes and losses.
Our circle of friends is also fading / changing from what it was just 5 years ago. Grand children arriving, dealing with sickness, retirement, change in income, and yes, even death, are changing the interactions we experience with our friends. Like you said in your post, it doesn't diminish the feelings you have for that friend, it just makes you aware of the loss.
Your post does not come across as "poor me" at all. It comes across as a person who values ALL of the relationships they enjoy in their life. This is both a blessing and a curse.
Experience the Blessing.
Love Dad
Although Its not limited to the 30's Taylor says there should be a site like a dating site for making friends.