How many friends do you have?
How much time do you spend with your friends?
Do most of your friends live nearby?
Do your friends know and are friends with each other?
When I was newly married, in my twenties and starting my career, my then-husband and I had a group of about 15 friends and we all hung out and did things together. A few people in this circle were extra special to me but mostly we all collectively planned pot luck dinners and days at the beach and lazy weekends smoking weed and drinking wine.
Since then, my friendships evolved into more singular connections: people I met from work, from my neighborhoods, from shared interests, from blogging, other parents, sometimes from friends of friends. The common thread now is that my friends are all over the place and I don't have a "hang out" group where I and they just knock on the door and fall into daily life. My friendships are also now more selective, probably because time seems more finite. They are also deeper, and most prominently, at a distance, some folks an hour or two away, some a state or two away, some a country or two away. I don't have that circle that I suspect comes from living and staying in one place.
I count about five or six people I would call in an emergency or in whose company I'm comfortable enough that I don't worry about when or how we connect. There's a wonderful comfort in that. But because they're most often not local, JB and I and they have to plan ahead to see one another and that's not the same as a knock on the door or an impromptu cook-out.
I live in the small town of Provincetown now and I think some deep and long lasting friendships are forming. When we first moved here JB was sick and now I'm slowed by my back pain so that's slowed our connections but even so, I don't see that we'll have a circle of friends who are also friends with one another. I am SO lucky to have wonderful interesting people around me, that's for sure. I can't complain, but still, I wish my friends and I wish my Jessica and her family were closer; close enough for a quick anytime drop-by. Close enough to share my chicken soup and lettuce from our garden or to drop off our puppy for a dog-sit. In other words, close enough to be spontaneous.
I'd love to hear about your friends and about your thoughts on friendships....
love
kj
Hi Friend!
ReplyDeleteYou bet, Mim. Friends for life 💜
ReplyDeleteI've never had a lot of friends, but I do have a few good friends. When my ex husband locked me and my daughter out of our home I was surprised at how many people offered up theirs homes for us to stay in. It was a good surprise at a bad time of my life.
ReplyDeleteI like blogging friends, although they come and go as well. It's like having a pen pal in the old days:)
Deb, no doubt you are a good friend. As for blogging I hate when someone disappears and I fon’t Know why. I followed a fun festy woman from Australia-anonymous bird- for a long time and one day she was just gone. I suspect something bad happened to her because I don’t think she would have done that otherwise.
DeleteI treasure knowing friends from the inside out and blog friends are that for me, including you 💜
Love
kj
What exactly are friends? A lot of people call everyone they know a friend. I don't. We have in Dutch a word for someone who is NOT a real friend but who we know very well and appreciate his or her companionship. We call such a person 'kennis'. I don't know the good English word for it. Acquaintance is not right. E.g. I have a lot of lovely ladies who play bridge with me. With one or two I do sometimes an outing or a visit (museum). We like each other very much, but we are certainly not friends. I am a Capricorn and maybe therefore I have never had best friends. People come and go in my life and I very much like to describe the relationship as walking together in life for a short or long(er) period, but then it ends with thankfulness. Never regret, never. Of course there are people who I trust deeply and of whom I know they will always help me if possible. I don't know whether that is friendship or just normal behaviour of human beings, who know each other.
ReplyDeleteWieneke, I would say you and I are friends not acquaintances and not kennis either. We go back a long way and I still hope to have apple pie with you 😜
DeleteI dislike that certain people come and go in my life 😢and I think those people you deeplyvtrist and will always help you are truly friends!
Love
kj
I've lost several close friends and others in the last five years, not due to age, and have difficulty cultivating new friendships. These days, people are far-flung and few know of each other, a situation I would somehow like to change.
ReplyDeletee, by far flung you mean at a distance and friends who don’t know one another? I get that; I don’t like it either. I hope a good friend or two enter your life and stay. Thanks for coming by my blog: you are always welcome here.
DeleteLove
kj
I love this post and the question at the end. Friendships have always meant a lot to me. They have held me so well. My friendships are deep or not at all. And blog friendships are the best. :)
ReplyDeleteHi hdwk, it is so fun to learn from and share with our blog friends. Only once was I wrong about someone I ‘met’ from blogging. It’s so nice to connect with you again!
DeleteLove
kj
KJ, some of my posts have touched on this. The friend I wrote about today was always moving, so usually at a distance. My favorite childhood friend and one high school friend are also, as is an elderly friend and the widow of an online friend whom I wrote of last week.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your thoughts on this subject, KJ. Three of my closest friends have moved away in the past decade plus and I have had to face the situation of how to make new friends as I grow older. I have made friends with two women who are friends of the friends who moved away (sort of a lovely parting gift in a way) and see them fairly regularly now. But cultivating the same kind of closeness that exists in older friendships does not come easily, if at all. So I put a lot of work into maintaining my older friendships at a distance as well. Also, I have come to treasure even more my husband, children and siblings and am putting more effort now into getting together with my sisters on a regular basis. Life shifts and allows us to discover new ways to find connection.
ReplyDelete