Tonight was our first night meeting with our new small group. Steve and I both had high hopes for tonight, largely in part because the other couples are parents. We barely had other couple friends when we became parents at 23. Even though Ella is now two, we have very few couple friends and even fewer friends that are parents. This is an emptiness that we both feel. With every additional life change our group of friends seems to shrink. For me, it shrank when I graduated from college. We all seemed to go in separate directions, both literally and figuratively. Then Steve and I got married and we tried to hang out with other couples. Outside of our siblings, I can think of two other couples we spent time with. Then I got pregnant.
I want to say right now that I love my girls and in no way regret having them. I also don't regret when we had them because they have made life fuller and richer than I could have imagined. I can't imagine what life would be like right now without them. But in making life richer, they also make it more complicated. It's hard to spend quality time with friends. If we go somewhere, it either needs to be when Steve is home or I have to bring them or find a babysitter. It's somewhat easier if the friend comes here, but then there are the constant interruptions of questions or kissing a bump or placing something out of reach. If that particular friend doesn't have kids or doesn't like kids, they don't always understand that this is my life now. Since I myself am not a big fan of other kids, I don't always invite friends over for this reason. Of course, even this is not typically a problem since every day life gets in the way of reconnecting with friends so easily. It's difficult enough to talk on the phone with a friend, let alone see her in person. Most of my friends are married now, but very few have kids. The few that do live far away. Steve's friends are single and hard to get on the phone, let alone see. So while having kids has been a joyous, life-altering event, it's also been an isolating one.
So we had very high hopes for tonight. These couples are parents too and all live nearby. Tonight we watched a movie on the lower level of the house while the kids played on the upper level. Despite everyone else being parents, we stayed so busy watching our girls we barely talked to the other adults before we started the movie. Then the movie started. Amelia was sitting with us and was hungry and a bit fussy. She didn't want to sit still, but didn't want to be on the floor either. Ella was in and out of the room. She spent a lot of her time in the dining room. She kept stealing the pizza crusts off plates the older kids had left on the table. Then she was playing with some cups and spilled water, which I cleaned up after I found some napkins in the closet. A little while later (after I checked and there were only empty cups on the table), another kid (whose parents did not check on him) left a full cup of Pepsi on the table and Ella promptly dumped it all over herself and the floor. Steve cleaned that up. We didn't have any clean clothes for Ella so we decided it was time to go. The movie wasn't over yet and so I'm not sure anyone else really noticed we left. So we barely spoke to any of the other parents and repeatedly cleaned up their house. Not the way we had hoped the evening would go. We'll try it again. If the kids are in the lower level without drinks, it should go much better.
We got home and it was just this sweet family time. We played on the floor with the girls with some music playing and we had a great time. But I couldn't help feeling it was bittersweet too. Like somehow this is how it will always be. There will be my friends, Steve's friends, and the girls' friends, but not family friends. Not a family that have kids the same ages that we all get along with. And not another mom who really understands where I am in my life. I love this time with my family, but that thought made me feel a bit sad. And lonely.
4 comments:
Oh, I'm sorry things didn't go as well as you had hoped, but I do understand. We've been there. I love our current small group and feel at home there, but it took us four tries (with three groups that weren't a great fit) before we found a place we really clicked. And that's hard, you spend months of your (very limited) free time investing in building new friendships only to decide that it's not the fit you hoped it would be. But, hang in there, sometimes it just takes time, maybe this will be the group after all. And, I wish we were closer so we could talk and spend time together more, I miss you!
Paula, I added your blog to my reader when you put up that Christmas card on fb. I just wanted to say, I'm sorry. For different reasons, we have gone through the same thing. It is hard to meet people and find people you click with after college. Even though we don't have kids yet, we are not exactly hip to the young people's scene here either so then where do you meet people? And then people are so busy with work or kids or family commitments. It is really hard and we found ourselves pretty lonely the first couple years of living here. Finally...finally we feel like we have some good friends but we still feel far from knowing everyone well.
I will pray for you guys. Liz is right. It does just seem to take time and maybe this group will be the right ones.
Sorry I meant to say also that we have met people at church but for some reason there just aren't a lot of people our age going to churches in our town. Maybe that's true everywhere.
Thanks you guys! It's the sort of thing that I'm glad other people understand, while wishing they didn't. I know this is something that will pass in time, but sometimes it's hard to see that now. Andrea, I remember hearing that our age group (18-30) is very underrepresented in churches. We're going to stick with this group for a few more weeks and see if things improve. If the kids are a bit more contained, supervision should be less of a problem!
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