In my teen years I had an amazing group of friends and we were inseparable. We were all together, all the time. We would visit each other often and when one was in town we would spend every waking second together. We would write letters, visit, call each other, and then life happened. There was no big falling out, no one got mad, we just had our own lives that didn’t seem to intersect as often. College, marriage, kids, work, you know the drill. Now we text, call, Facebook message, even visit each others homes from time to time, but things aren’t the same. For example typically at age 30 you have a huge party, and then again at 40, and at 50. I recently celebrated one of those big birthdays. I planned two events for my birthday. One was for all my friends from my teen years the week or so before my actual birthday. Guess how many friends planned to come? You got it, zero! I gotta be honest that stung for a minute or two. Yes, I got over it rather quickly, it really was just a minute or two.
After my brief pity party of one, I realized my friends from my teen years had no real reason to come hang out at my house. We don’t do the same things anymore. We still love each other deeply, but life isn’t the same as it was when we were teenagers. When you have a few moments to yourself who wants to spend it with people you no longer have anything in common with. That just makes you tired and after a long week no one wants that! Besides, most of the group now have children, meaning most weekends are filled with sports, dance, plays, music, and any other activity you can think of.
I know half a zillion people, but of those I have a handful that are close to me. If we are truthful, most of us would say there are only a few people we’d want to vacation with. There are people that I love so very, very much, but please don’t make me sit in a room with them for more than an hour. For other people one hour is pushing it. It’s funny how life changes. When I was younger the bigger the crowd the better. Most of the time now I just want my small group. More often than not if I make plans and they don’t pan out, I’m smiling because I’m a big homebody and didn’t want to leave the house anyway.
Now back to my birthday…my plans with my friends fell through, but the other plans I made, those were with my family. They came from as far as 12 hours away just to spend the day with me. Do you know what I had planned special to do? Nothing! Yep, my plans for my big birthday were to chill and just enjoy the day with family and that is what I did. Life may have changed, but my family hasn’t. They are amazing! As I’ve gotten older, I realize more and more that my family members are my friends. Just in case you are curious, I do have other friends, they are a small circle, but a tightly knit one.
Am I the only one that doesn’t have the same group of friends as I did in my teenage years? Are you still crazy close to the ones you used to be friends with? Have you found that your family is closer friends to you than others? Drop me a line and let me know your experience.
Amen 100%