Friday, March 14, 2014

Dwelling thoughts Friendship

I seem to be spending a lot of time thinking about the category of  friendship and my roll in it.  Not sure why this has come up in the last couple months other than I have spend quite a bit of time alone lately.  This is really very UNUSUAL for me.  At least in my adult life.

Lets go back and think.
As a kid, I spent much of my time alone.   We lived in a neighborhood with a number of kids around my age but they all lived on the other side of the street.  That meant that in the pecking order of children, I was at the bottom of the ladder as I did not live on the "right side of the street"  I had two brothers but one of them was 6.5 years older than me and the other was 8.5 years younger than me. 
In upper elementary school I had a group of friends, there were 6 of us, but the 5 of them lived in about a one block radius and I was clear on the other side of the zone of that school so I had to make the effort to get to their neighborhood, and being a kid........

These friendships continued in to junior high and even somewhat in to high school but slowly that group drifted apart with other high school interests.  Probably they would say I was the first to go really, as I said, neighborhoods were very different and by that time, all the other kids in my neighborhood, the Right Side of the Street Club, had all moved away.  In I think 4th grade, my grandfather bought me my first horse and from that time, my horses were my best friends.  Other people came and went in my life generally to get to ride my horses.  I also saw people around me making choices that were not right for me, so up in to the foot hills my horse and I went. 

After high school I went to the local community college for 3 semesters.  Few of the people I went to high school with were there as the point was that there was a great big world out there and our home town was awful so off in to the world we go and those who chose to stay home were in some way losers.  So, most of the friends I made there were older than me and going back to school as adults. 

Off to University I went in my 4th semester and again.  I had a plan for my college time.  I planned to get my education and become a teacher.  I wasn't there to party, or to find a husband, or to find sorority sisters to be friends for life.  I went to school, I studied, I worked (Oh yeah, I had jobs in college to pay for my college)  That took a lot of the time others were out in groups so I wasn't there.

After college, I became less of a loner as I became a teacher and had people around me constantly.  Not just the little people I taught, every day, I had people to eat lunch with, we went to conferences together, we shared motel rooms.. 4-5 of us at a time.  We took continuing Education classes to maintain our licenses together in the summers.  When I quit teaching, I quickly realized that those friends were no longer there either.   

Then I became a mom.  That really changed things.  Not only did my kids go everywhere with me, when they weren't and were at daycare while I worked, I made a new group of Mommy Friends when we shared babysitters and such.  Not to mention, my brothers each were beginning families at that time too and we shared babysitters and had family dinners and did things together so our kids could be together. Then there were children's activities that we all participate in. And when you are raising 7 kids, that is a LOT of activities.  More "friends" came with that.  But when those activities were not part of our lives, those people also drifted away.

I'm down to the last of the kids who is in "activities".  He is 17 and we only have a short time left but the things he is involved in even requires travel.  So, the people I am involved in with that for the most part are from a 200 mile radius.  Not very close at hand.  And when this son moves on out in to the world........

Other than this, the vast majority of the things I do revolve around extended family.  Don't get me wrong, this is in no way a bad thing, it just is what it is.

So, I have been here reflecting lately. 

Friend by definition is: a person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically exclusive of sexual or family relations.


Acquaintance by definition:
a person one knows slightly, but who is not a close friend.

 

By definition, I am finding that I am acquainted  a pretty great number of people and then there are  people that I THOUGHT were friend who were  never really anything but someone I knew slightly.  Well, actually, I think the deal is that I knew them better than they knew me.  I just believed what I wanted to believe about having a bond of mutual affection with them. 

I think we live in a day and age where we do not have to rely long term on people as much as we did in generations past.  We also "get to know" people and keep in touch by way of social media where we can be what we want to be, not necessarily what we REALLY are.  This makes people much more disposable in our lives than ever before and the excuses of Hey, I have just been really busy,  Its not you, its me, and many others just pop out of peoples mouths and fingers. 

I find myself thinking about a particular situation where I have repeatedly gone back to the last encounter with a specific person and ask myself if there was something I was supposed to hear in that conversation that I missed?  Or if I said something that was misinterpreted, or just what happened.  I tell myself that it really doesn't matter as I don't think I would get a straight answer anyway. 
I guess the biggest point is that its just time to move on and do the job in this life I was meant to do and understand that few acquaintances actually ever become friends.   And that is just Ok. 


Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Question of the Day... How do you make friends

How do you make Friends?  

I'm thinking that I need to find an outside interest.  All this time, I have limited my interests to things I could do at HOME.. because I was raising kids and someone needed to be there, but yet, I needed things of y onw.  Now, I am thinking that I need to get out more.  Problem is, I'm not "in to" most "Adult Activities" so that makes it really difficult. 

Back when I was a teenager and my mother was looking for this same thing, there were options in town that we no longer have.  At that time there was a yarn store that she (and sometimes we) took knitting and crocheting lessons.  She took ceramics classes, she took painting classes.  At each of those places there were other women who were of at least similar mind. 

I'm not finding it as easy as she did to find similar interests in town anymore.  Sigh. 
Any ideas would be great.