It's looking like this blog is going to be about my social issues, which are many, but I guess that's just where I am right now.
Getting married means you make friends with other couples, because people don't usually want to be a "third wheel" and couples don't want to make a friend feel like they're being invited into a threesome or something. Kidding. When I got married I had a baby immediately after and we didn't have those couple friends yet. And when your husband and you have different friends to begin with and belong to different communities and are over a decade apart and your spouse doesn't rely on friends the way you do and neither of you drink anymore... common friends are pretty hard to come by. But we're newlyweds with an infant and two children, so we spend what very little "alone" time we have together. Which means we hardly have friends at all in the way we did before: the quantity time of sharing a house with other people and living in a small-town-feeling big city where you can run into friends everywhere. The quality time of drinking wine and getting heady with a group of friends on Sunday nights. Of weekend brunches and summer cookouts.
Thankfully there are a huge amount of wonderful, caring, intelligent ladies in my community who had babies around the same time as I did. They supported me through my pregnancy and gave me advice and support and gifts, even though I was hardly close to any of them before I got pregnant. And without any real effort, my single friends and I drifted apart. It happens. Having a baby changed my entire life and I had no idea how to relate to the person I was before I had her, let alone how to relate to the people I had lived a completely different life with. And try as I might to keep connected, I can't figure out how to straddle the line of being a mother and being an individual.
I love hanging out with other parents. They bring wisdom and insight and they understand you, which at first is something you can't even do for yourself. But then I want to go to a bar and drink whiskey and not talk about what my baby eats now and the cute thing she did and how annoying breastfeeding can be. But then I try to and I realize that all I seem to know about the world anymore is what my damn baby is up to.
It's getting easier. The more independent little E gets, the more I can do as well. I can read the news and listen to music and catch up on the stack of books I've been trying to get around to. And maybe I'll be able to have a conversation without the word "boob" coming out of my mouth. And maybe I'll start to accept that talking about being a mother is different than always talking about your baby, it's something that everyone can relate to, because we've all had one.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Weathering the storm (repost)
So, I'm sitting in my house thinking about all the times I've been through a Philadelphia winter, huddled in a house with a dozen friends eating food and playing games during a snowstorm. And thinking how I cannot even imagine that happening these days, with this hurricane on the way. How those times have tapered off over the years. And I feel a little crushed that having a family has completely usurped the very close family of friends I'd so quickly been welcomed into when I came to Philadelphia 6 years ago, as an angsty, mixed up, soul-searching young 19 year old.
I understand that dynamics change. That much of my first few years in this city and this community were full of booze and hormone filled bad decisions and drama, and that we've since grown up. That many of us have formed real families of our own and have been pulled farther into our household and out of our oikos. And our friend groups have gotten smaller and become more based on our relationship status and childrens ages than our starry-eyed desire to change the world in big picture ways. But I want both. I NEED both. My family is my life, but my family is not all of who I am. And people have always mattered to me more than anything. I believe I have the capacity to love more than I do. And I wonder if any of you are feeling the same.
So what I'm asking for here is a new movement. A new reach to stay connected outside of this screen. To resurrect family dinners that consist of far more than our immediate family. To have Sunday brunches and record listenings and afternoon tea. To be intentional in forming new relationships and reviving old ones. In surrounding our children with our friends and our conversation and our passions as creative, smart, funny individuals. I want my family to know you and be known by you. And I want friendships that aren't only based on the existence of said family.
I want being poor to not keep me from being generous. Not to worry about how little food we have in the fridge and how messy our house is to keep me from inviting friends into it and feeding them what I have. I'm not looking to change the world in the big picture sense quite yet. I'm looking to change my world so I have the energy and passion to do bigger things down the road.
Maybe I'm the only one who hasn't figured out this balance, maybe the old dynamic is too far gone, but if you feel the same I'd love to try. All that to say, I want my friends in my new life. I want a middle ground. And I want your help in this. I'd like to resurrect family dinner, maybe moving from house to house. Once a month to start? We'll do the first one and pick a date once I get a feel for who is interested. So... there's that.
I understand that dynamics change. That much of my first few years in this city and this community were full of booze and hormone filled bad decisions and drama, and that we've since grown up. That many of us have formed real families of our own and have been pulled farther into our household and out of our oikos. And our friend groups have gotten smaller and become more based on our relationship status and childrens ages than our starry-eyed desire to change the world in big picture ways. But I want both. I NEED both. My family is my life, but my family is not all of who I am. And people have always mattered to me more than anything. I believe I have the capacity to love more than I do. And I wonder if any of you are feeling the same.
So what I'm asking for here is a new movement. A new reach to stay connected outside of this screen. To resurrect family dinners that consist of far more than our immediate family. To have Sunday brunches and record listenings and afternoon tea. To be intentional in forming new relationships and reviving old ones. In surrounding our children with our friends and our conversation and our passions as creative, smart, funny individuals. I want my family to know you and be known by you. And I want friendships that aren't only based on the existence of said family.
I want being poor to not keep me from being generous. Not to worry about how little food we have in the fridge and how messy our house is to keep me from inviting friends into it and feeding them what I have. I'm not looking to change the world in the big picture sense quite yet. I'm looking to change my world so I have the energy and passion to do bigger things down the road.
Maybe I'm the only one who hasn't figured out this balance, maybe the old dynamic is too far gone, but if you feel the same I'd love to try. All that to say, I want my friends in my new life. I want a middle ground. And I want your help in this. I'd like to resurrect family dinner, maybe moving from house to house. Once a month to start? We'll do the first one and pick a date once I get a feel for who is interested. So... there's that.
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