Thursday, July 8, 2010

Friend courtship

I might be getting a new friend.  It is kind of exciting.  It is a parent from school.  (My 13 month old daughter goes to school, not day care.  This helps me immensely with the pain of not being home with her.)

It is hard making new friends when you get older.  Maybe it is just me.  I used to have a load of friends and ran a little wild.  I used to be fairly hard core.  I have long since cleaned up my ways and the friends dropped off a few at a time.  All for the best.  

Then came husband, then came Dark Ages, then came another husband, then came baby.  I have reinvented myself on accident many times during all of these phases.  I treasure my old friends, but old friends aren't always so easily accessible in the day to day.  I migrated through a lot of every day face to face friends.  Your single friends can fade somewhat with marriage and they sure don't get the baby scene.

TMI?  Probably, but I cannot see you squirming uncomfortably in your seat, so I will carry on.

You know how you kind of chat it up with a new person; determine you might share the same sense of humor; have the same pace of life.  You start to look for that person.  She loves my baby.  Calls her a "Pottery Barn baby".  Of COURSE I like her.  

The latest episode of courtship started innocently enough.  She actually said I looked thinner.  Again, of COURSE I like her.  I have dressed like shit ever since the IF drama began.  I should have gotten the heads up when she tells me I usually wear bigger clothes.  I decide not to tell her a miscarriage really helps a girl with her figure.  We got to talking and it turns out she is trying for a sibling for her son. 

Somehow, it comes out we are trying as well.  I forget she is of The Fertile.  This is a fatal mistake.  She cries, "Oh, what fun!  We could do this together!"

Fuck.

So much for that budding friendship.

Friends tend to change with each new chapter of your life.  I am delighted to have a lot of old friends, the most valuable kind - from grade school, high school and college.  But I adore new friends.  No one gets your present like they do.  New friends turn into old.

Thank you, ladies.  Unloading here makes my load a little lighter every time.  Here is to all my sisters with a different set of clothes for every cycle.  Regular, large, and larger still.

Here is to the next BFP for all of us.

5 comments:

  1. Ugh. I hear you Roccie. Nothing like dragging a Fertile with you through hell tho. They will see things that cannot be unseen. :)

    Hoping she turns out to be the kind of BFP who has a nice comfy shoulder to cry on and says all the right things at the right time. It would be such a kindness.

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  2. You're right about the friends, and the courtships. And there is something about all of this that is so isolating, which makes a new friend twice as valuable. But would it be too much to hope that she, too, was having a slightly rocky road? It's much easier if you're both on that one together (though, I realize that sounds selfish and I wouldn't really wish it on someone else).

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  3. Great Post! I know exactly what you mean.

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  4. go for the fertile friend!

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  5. we find friends in both the dark and light crevices of life. your situation affords you the unique ability to relate to youth, to aging, to the confused, to the empowered, to the defeated, and to the hopeful. you are a good friend, and that is an extraordinary gift. maybe your new friend will surprise you. you will never know if you do not take the chance.

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