This is the hardest part about friendships
In the meantime, I have a nice, steady group of girls around me that I do consider my best and dearest friends.
I have known one since toddlerhood, another joined a bit later during student life, but they all complement each other in a certain way and have something special. Something that makes us match with each other and allows us to laugh and chat and be crazy about each other, in good times and some less good times. But I also notice, the older I get, that friendships are not always easy peasy summer breezy to have. Sometimes it’s just damn difficult to have a girlfriend. No matter how crazy you are about her. And that’s mainly how it is.
Because the hardest part of a friendship might be what we call ‘daily life’. We are all always busy and we are all always on and have to do a million things. According to researchers, we have an average of four best friends and another eleven good friends. For many more people in your life, there is hardly any time. Then consider that you also have colleagues you want to see outside of work hours, that you quickly spend about 40 hours a week on work, and that you also have family and a relationship that take time and that you also want to give time. How few evenings and afternoons in the week are left for those 15 good buddies? Exactly: not so much. Go ahead and try to divide that fairly.
Especially now that I am about to become a mother, I know that friendships will take a bit of a backseat here and there. The times of going to countless parties with large groups and having all the time for lunches and coffees and dinners are over: I will simply have to be more at home from the moment that my little ones are here. I don't worry too much about my friends: that steady group remains. But there is sometimes a bit of doubt. What if I can hardly see them when the boys are here? What if it fades away, with this or that? I really don’t want that, I also want to keep knowing everything about their lives, and play a role in their stories. But yes, soon everything in my house will be upside down and I will really have to get used to that new role in my life. How do friends fit into that? Will they come by during that hectic postpartum time? Will they become friends with my boys? We will find out.
Cherish especially who you have around you and oh, let that show a bit more. I think I will send some cards today. Just because I don’t have a diaper to change yet. And because I want to let them know that I can’t do without them, as a mom.
