Friendship

I’ve moved a lot in the last few years, well, a lot for me.  I didn’t want to leave California, where Alex had grown up and I had made my adult mom friends and found my ride or die friends.  I was so lucky to have found a group of like minded Moms to spend my time with and to be Alex’s first friends. There are too many good friends to call everyone out by name, but you all know exactly who you are! I have one friend in CA, who knows who she is, who let me be my most authentic self- I never had to pretend anything when I was with her.  I had crafty friends who spent weekends scrapbooking with me, offering wisdom and friendship in equal measure.

I said when we moved back to Illinois that I wasn’t going to make any friends, it would be too hard and didn’t want to have to say goodbye in what we knew would be a temporary situation.

And then this amazing group of friends got dropped into my lap, and we did PTA and day drinking (and night drinking) and as much as I missed my CA peeps, I was happy again and had a growing village there.

Saying goodbye to Illinois friends was harder than I could have imagined because I found friends there that understood me (and another friend that I could really be myself with, anxieties and all).   Actually, I had so many good friends in Illinois, watch your kids while you get stuff done friends, and go to lunch friends, and there for you when you have a crappy day and nothing feels right friends.

It doesn’t get easier the more you do it, whether you are the one leaving or the one staying behind.  So do me a favor, think about your friends, the ones around the corner and the ones across the country (or across the globe) and stop to appreciate the fact that these people make your life a little brighter, just by being there.

Recently we had to say goodbye to some of our best friends in China. While we are very happy for them in their new adventure, we are sad to see them go. There is an element of life here in China that some of our friends are only here for a semester and then they rotate back to Illinois, some are here for two or three weeks at a time a few times a semester.  Some people you know won’t come back, and in all honesty, despite promising the opposite, you know neither of you will really keep in touch. Some become very close and you know they’ll be in your life forever.