I’ve not been writing. At all. I haven’t been publicly sharing my feelings. In fact, I’ve barely been talking about my feelings (on this matter) to anyone. This is different from the “suffering in silence” I always encourage people to not do. Namely because, I’m not suffering. Nothing is wrong.
I’ve just been thinking. Experiencing. Living. Watching. Figuring out. On my own.
(I also feel the need to say that since I haven’t been writing, I basically forgot how to write, and what follows is un-edited and super rambly. Oops.)
I’ve been thinking a lot about friendship. Since the summer, really. I’ve been thinking about how I’ve always been an introvert but I’ve always had some close friends. A handful of them are the close-forever-since-we-were-kids friends. Many of them came from work. And then this summer when I wasn’t working for nearly the first time in my life, I realized I felt alone. Without the closest friends I was used to spending all day with, day after day all summer, I felt lonely. Some friendships are hard to maintain when they don’t have a common denominator. Or, you maintain them, but from afar and not in the intense, every single day way you’re used to. (As in, you can always reach out to them and get together every so often, but it’s not a person you are able to connect with and see each day.)
I also spent a lot of time thinking about friendships that I was spending way too much time trying to maintain. Relationships where I know the other person loves and cares about me, and would always take a phone call or meet up if I asked, but where they didn’t think about me and wouldn’t think to reach out or check in and make plans, and I was always the one trying trying trying. Do you know what I mean by this? Where there’s no mal-intent, just some sort of imbalance. Where you have someone as #1 in your book, but really, you’re probably #10 in theirs.
I started to have more insight into these lopsided friendships and decided that I have two choices: continue doing what I’m doing and keep it lopsided (read: put in a ton of effort and constantly be disappointed), which isn’t really sustainable, OR re-balance it by resetting my priorities and effort level to match theirs. And that’s very hard, and it was kind of sad, but I’ve realized that it’s not worth my emotional energy trying to maintain it as one thing when it just isn’t that thing.
Which got me thinking about something different, but related, as I think this can sometimes be the cause of lopsided relationships:
I think there are forever friendships and there are situational ones. Sometimes you go through something with someone: a shared personal experience, working together, a 10-week art class, whatever, and it situationally binds you, so you become close and sometimes inseparable and each other’s “person.” But once the situation is over, or has passed, or gotten better, or shifted, sometimes you realize (or it just happens) that fundamentally you aren’t forever friends, or at least not forever #1 level friends, and that’s not a bad thing (even though it can feel like it) – more that you needed/had each other during that time, and once the time is gone, so is the common denominator.
I am moving into a much better place of acceptance and understanding with all of this. I find it fascinating and am enjoying the “aha” moments when I figure out the next step, rather than the confusion and sadness I felt over the summer.
I will say, also – as an introvert, as someone who doesn’t have a huge friend group to start, as someone who works full time and is also a parent full time and a wife full time, as someone who has next to no free time, it’s super super super hard to make any new friendships let alone strengthen the true ones I have. The fact of the matter is that during the year, I move nonstop all day until the second I go to bed. There’s work and bringing work home and packing lunches and doing dishes and cooking dinners and cleaning playing with my daughter and spending time with my husband and attempting to work out and that’s it.
(And those are GREAT things. That’s what I’m coming to realize. I can dislike how crazy busy it is, but love the reasons for it – I don’t love doing chores and making dinners and packing lunches, but I love that I have a family. I don’t love having no free time during the day but I love my job more than anything. You know? I used to feel so guilty for getting annoyed about being busy because I’d think, It was my choice. I can’t complain about something I brought upon myself. Um, of course I can. It’s an and not a but, right? I love my life AND it is sometimes hard. Yes of course a positive attitude helps – and I have improved in that regard, maybe another post for another day, but it doesn’t mean it can’t ever be hard. Anyway. I digress.)
I’d like to make friendship a personal goal. Connections have helped me with life and motherhood and I don’t want them to disappear. I’d like to keep being mindful of relationships that are balanced in time and effort and thought, and strengthen them, and meet new people as it happens, and put in effort to meet new people, rather than close myself off and decide I have no time and it won’t happen. I’d like to peacefully move away from the friendships that naturally faded and were never really right to begin with (and/or just adjust my expectations), rather than clinging to them. And I’d like to keep exploring what it all means.
Does this resonate with you at all? Have you experienced anything like this? Has connection been harder for you since becoming a parent? How do you meet new people? How do you prioritize? Tell me anything and everything.
