{"id":3349,"date":"2014-02-28T08:14:55","date_gmt":"2014-02-28T13:14:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/?p=3349"},"modified":"2014-03-03T18:35:09","modified_gmt":"2014-03-03T23:35:09","slug":"far-away-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/2014\/02\/28\/far-away-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"Far Away Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"

I greatly envy small children and their ability to easily make new friends.\u00a0 Every time I take the girls to the park, we leave with them talking about a new friend they made and how that person invited them to their house or how my girls want them to our house sometime.\u00a0 Of course these friendships are usually a one-time deal but I have no doubt that if each had a working toddler size smartphone they would be exchanging phone numbers (or Twitter handles!)<\/p>\n

While I (think) I\u2019m a very friendly person who\u2019s easy to get along with, I\u2019ve never been good at making friends.\u00a0 I\u2019m not the most outgoing person and while I can easily talk with strangers, especially if they initiate the conversation, I\u2019m not good at \u201ctaking it to the next level.\u201d \u00a0It takes me many chance meetings before I\u2019m comfortable asking for a phone number or for another playdate. \u00a0But when I do manage to make a friend, it usually turns into a great, long lasting friendship.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s become a trend, though, in the world of my friendships: no matter how close we are, we always end up separated.\u00a0 I spent the first 18 \u00bd years of my life in the same city and since then I have made 5 major moves, never spending more than 3 years in one place.\u00a0 Of course my moving has ended many friendships, but I\u2019ve noticed I tend to friend people who move around as well.<\/p>\n

\"1016764_4923823342944_98326472_n\"<\/a>In High School, I didn\u2019t have a lot of friends.\u00a0 I spent so much time at the dance studio that the girls I danced with became my closest friends and I ended up spending even my free time with them rather than people from school (of course my senior year I only had 4 classes so was only at school 3 hours a day anyways\u2026)\u00a0 Those dancers that I so adored during my tumultuous teen years are now some of my closest allies as we all embark on this mommy adventure together (though I\u2019m a few years and a few children ahead of the rest!) Of the good friends I\u2019ve retained since High School, every single one of us moved away from Colorado (though many have since moved back).<\/p>\n

I met hubby in my first week of college and so I never developed a large group of collegiate friends, though I did have a few very close friends.\u00a0 Unfortunately, aside from Facebook, I\u2019ve only really kept up with two of them.\u00a0 And our years in Oklahoma and our first stop in South Florida were not much different.\u00a0 I only came out with one lasting friend (though that time really helped boost my number of Facebook friends!)<\/p>\n

Our time in Dublin provided me with my first large group of friends since I was in High School.\u00a0 Two of my greatest friends in Dublin moved away the fall before we came back.\u00a0 They were my only friends who lived in walking distance, they were also new to the area and didn\u2019t have cars either so we would spend our days together with our kids, wandering and exploring Dublin. Their moving away had a lot to do with my longing to return \u201chome.\u201d \u00a0While I was closer to some friends in Dublin than I was to others, I\u2019ve been able to keep in touch with many (even beyond their Facebook timelines).<\/p>\n

And since returning to South Florida I\u2019ve formed several friendships that I value deeply and see continuing long into our futures.\u00a0 Yet the cycle continues.\u00a0 A family we were good friends with moved away in the fall and now one of my greatest friends in Florida (whose family we have grown very close with as well) is preparing to leave too.\u00a0 And as sad as I am for myself losing a friend, I\u2019m even sadder for my children losing more friends.<\/p>\n

\"534086_10153910725705341_1241016525_n\"<\/a>When we left Dublin, Honeybun spent many months talking about her friends she missed in Dublin and while she has made many more new and great friends in school and dance, I still miss the friendships she had in Dublin (though now she only remembers the ones we keep up with over Skype).\u00a0 I\u2019ve come to accept that losing and making new friendships is just a part of my life, but it\u2019s really sad to think about it having to be a part of my children\u2019s lives too.<\/p>\n

And while not ideal, I am very thankful for the technology that exists which we can use to stay connected.\u00a0 I love that I can easily stay up to date in many people\u2019s lives through Facebook and that we can continue having \u201cface-to-face\u201d experiences no matter how far the distance between.\u00a0 And it really is true that absence makes the heart grow fonder and I it makes me so thankful for every second I get to spend in reality with my far away friends!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I greatly envy small children and their ability to easily make new friends.\u00a0 Every time I take the girls to the park, we leave with them talking about a new friend they made and how that person invited them to their house or how my girls want them to our house sometime.\u00a0 Of course these […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-mommys-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3349"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3417,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3349\/revisions\/3417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}