Friendships

I have had the opportunity in my life to have some pretty awesome friends. Some of them I still have and sometimes I'm lucky enough to get to see them once in awhile. Although some of them hail from as far away as England, Germany, and Japan - we try to reconnect on a regular basis.

But something has come to my attention in the past few years and it's an interesting phenomenon. Sometimes friends that you are very close with you stop being close with when you both have your collective families. This occurs for a variety of reasons: you move away from each other; no time to spend together (life gets more busy); but the biggest reason I find is you just can't be friends with that person anymore because they aren't the same kind of parent that you are. Either you discipline your kids strictly and they don't do anything or you won't allow back-talking and they do. Whatever the issue may be, when children come into the mix, it becomes much more difficult to make good friends and keep them.

Also, I find that it's difficult to find couples that both you and your spouse can be friends with, close friends with. Either you and the wife are great friends, your husbands are great friends or vice versa but it's tough to find the whole package. I guess when you do, that's when you (I mean me here) get a little over-the-top about trying to be the 'best friend ever' and win some kind of award. I find myself making all sorts of gestures, promises, etc. to try and keep them as my friend. Ridiculous really, when all I have to do is just be myself and be 'cool'.

It's just food for thought really - just something that's bouncing around my brain waves...but I guess when it comes right down to it, I miss how easy it used to be to have friends, keep friends and hang out with friends.