Meaningful Friendships

I’ve been looking over the February Prompts, and I’m a little nervous about some of the topics, and excited at the same time. I’ve discovered very quickly that I’m not able to write on a daily basis because of the depth of these prompts. It takes awhile to think through and process the ideas that each prompt provokes. If you are using the prompts, I hope you won’t feel discouraged by the overall number of prompts, or the ones you don’t use, but instead feel inspired to share the parts of your story that matter most to you.

Today, I’m writing on friendship. I’ve been blessed to have some great friendships over the course of my life. In high school, I had a great friend group made up of several girls who were all “college-prep”, and several of us were vying for the best grades and the valedictorian and salutatorian positions in our class. It was almost always a positive situation and the competition between us didn’t cause issues within the friendships. Mostly. (I mean, we were teenage girls, so we occasionally annoyed one another). I am so thankful for those years, because I learned how to be a part of a friend group. Thanks to Facebook, I can still keep up with a few of those sweet friends, even if we aren’t in each other’s daily lives anymore. Most of us waited until around age 30 to have children, so we’re all entering the new “empty nest” territory these last couple of years.

The older I get, the more I have realized that I’m not someone who needs a LOT of friends to be happy. I’m an introvert at heart, and honestly could spend most of my time alone, or with my husband and kids, and be totally happy. I struggle with social anxiety and have to push myself to do things with others because I know it’s important. I also tend to be an over-sharer (if my blogging hasn’t already clued you in to that), and I’m sure I rub others the wrong way with all my details. Thankfully I’ve found a husband who likes to listen and overshare too, so we are perfectly matched in that area.

I do have a couple of female friends who have been there with me through the last couple of decades of life. We’ve had babies together, watched those toddlers grow into young kids and then teenagers and now adult children. We’ve not always been in each other’s daily lives because of distance, but we’ve been able to stand firm together through the hard things and celebrate during the wonderful times. Technology has made that even easier, and I’m thankful for quick “pray for me” texts as well as the “can you believe this?!” texts and all the memes and silly fun ones in between.

One of the most beautiful parts about parenting our adult (or almost adult) children is the friendships that are beginning to form with them. There are a lot of struggles with these years, but I’m loving the transition to deep friendships that we are experiencing. I’ve always ENJOYED being with my kids, but there is something different that is growing, as they leap into adulthood. Some of the best moments we’ve had lately have been sitting in our living room and laughing at life with the “kids”. I am hopeful that these relationships will continue to be the most meaningful friendships of my life.

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