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| My current best friend! |
I've been having some sad moments lately, nothing too long lived but just times when I wonder where all my friends have gone and if I'll ever make any more. Moving away when you are an adult is a funny old thing, you don't really get as many chances to meet great new friends as you did when you were younger. People already seem to have their friendship circles well established and then maybe it is just that I'm not that interesting but I can't seem to break into them.
It is nearly a year now since we moved to our new home and the only visitors we have had to stay are my family. They are of course the ones I want to see more than anyone else but I had hoped some other friends might come too, we have a few hundred bedrooms after all and can put people up! But I'm realising that life is busy nowadays and you just can't fit everything in, we can only make time for those we love best or want to see most and I suppose it is just a bit of an awakening to realise I'm not that person for many people.
Of course I've met some nice women here and I'm sure I could call on some of them if I needed a hand. I have a particularly lovely Thursday coffee group that I have joined and I see Mums at the school that I recognise but there is still those sad moments when I'm in the playground with a group of 3 or 4 chatting and one asks 'what are you doing over half-term, are you home?' I'm just about to answer when another Mum does and she says her family will be about and before I can speak the other woman says 'great we must get the kids together and do something'. Whoops my faux pas, I realise I was not being spoken to and it was not an invitation for my kids.
My noisy, bossy, vivacious kids that are just like me when I was their age. They don't get any invitations home for tea and neither did I. Not that people did tea dates much in those days but you know birthday parties or swimming where the same. The Mums would chat and arrange things without me. I remember sitting in my bedroom, at the window crying watching the girl next doors birthday party that she had not invited me to. I was OK to play with most days but not good enough to attend the party. Oh dear this post is turning into a bit of a pity party now but I'm sure there are others out there who must relate and also feel a bit left out.
Friendships are difficult for me if I'm honest. I didn't really have any good friends until I was about 12, before that I was the odd kid out, the one who tried too hard. From secondary school onwards I met people that I enjoyed spending time with and we had fun. Then at Uni I seemed to come into my own and I met friends that I adore and would love to see more of. Sadly one is now in New Zealand and I find the whole oversees communication very difficult, another is a devout Muslim and our lives seem to have gone in very different directions as well as her being a couple of hours away and the last I do still chat with and will see later in the year, which is good. All three of them I still count as good friends. I know I could go to them with anything but still it is not the same as having a local person that you really click with. You know, your 'go to' person that you can just watch crap daytime TV with if you so desire and go shopping.
I had friends like that in Hertfordshire before we moved and especially when JJ and the girls were little but again as the kids have got older and we have been at work, dynamics changed and we weren't able to spend the same sort of time together any more and now we are mostly Facebook friends.
I suppose I should have titled this post - '40 year old mum in East Sussex - would like to meet a new mate!' but actually I'm not sure how much use I'd be as a friend right now. I don't seem to have any conversation left, I'm not sure what to chat about. There are the kids but that gets boring after a while and my only work is blogging now, which unless you are a blogger is like a separate universe and that seems to be it. I've sort of lost me along the way. I suppose I ought to go and find me and see if I like what I find.
Ohh and I also need to get off my bum and start inviting some kids to come back here and play. I really don't want my children to grow up thinking that people do not like them. I so wish there was a rule book so that mums and kids knew how to play all the games people want to play so we could just fit in and be liked. And perhaps there lies the problem for me, I want to be liked and what I should just be doing is is being me and saying sod those who don't like it, I'm better off not spending time with them anyway.
I haven't posted this to receive a ton of hugs, blogging is the one place where I know I do have friends. I just wanted to get this out of my system and to see if anyone had any good advise of how to make new friends as a grown up. Do I need to be move brave and do the inviting? and how do I help my kids form nice friendships, one that extend out of school?
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