Friends!

I used to see my closest friends all of the time. I even saw my good friends pretty often. It is just what I did, I made plans. I had a full social calendar and it covered a whole gamet of lifetime friends. Beth and I (and Dave and Todd) went out every weekend. Jenn and I walked home from work, then hit the gym. Rachel and I had our weekly brunch. Life for me was about staying in close contact to the friends I considered family and the family I considered friends. I still believe in that life, but find it so much harder to connect.
Now a days, the people I spend the most time with are girls I just met. On the surface, what we have in common is that we have kids around the same age. As we get to know eachother better I know we will find we have more than that in common. These girls are great and I look forward to continuing to mold friendships with them, but it does amaze me that I have to work so hard to spend time with my closest friends.
I live a half mile from Rachel and getting together requires a date on the calendar. And, since both of our schedules revolve around our children's activities, free time on the calendar is not easy to come by.
Jenn is off on Wed. but that never seems to work for us, so weekends become the best time to get together. Of course, that is family time, and unless Todd has another commitment I try to not take the boys away from him on the weekends. Of course, golf season is among us, so soon I will have many more free Saturdays for Jenn and Max and soon-to-be baby boy #2.
Although we are starting to go out more on the weekends, we still do not see Beth and Dave all that often. They do not even have kids yet and we still have a hard time connecting. We were just fortunate to spend last Saturday night with them, and the great time we had reminded me why (not that I forgot) why we spent so many weekends together in the past.
There are others, far too many to list. Siblings, cousins, friends, all of whom we love to spend time with and yet being able to is more difficult than we ever imagined.
I know this is the way of the world. We were once all so tight, we were each other's l ives. We seemed to have unlimited time to spend with others and we always spent it together. Our endless nights in bars all of us together are times that every 20-something should have, and they are some of my greatest memories. But, now we all have separate lives, with our husbands, our children, our families. We are in each other's lives and, like everything else that means anything, we have to work at the relationship. And I will, and they will, this I know and it is worth it. When we do find the time, we pick up where we left off in our chatter, we are amazed by the growth and change of each other's kids, we are fascinated by the depths of our friendship, and we know why we are such good friends, no matter how often we do or do not see eachother.