Adults Only!

Last weekend was awesome. Really awesome. We had a rare, adults only, relaxing, and fun time with good friends. We hung out, ate, drank, laughed, played games, watched TV, slept late, ate more, drank more, laughed more, etc. It felt like college again. Sort of. At least for 48 hours we forgot about responsibilities. We forgot about children. About bills. About laundry. (We also forgot we were on weight watchers, but no need to really document that!). We forgot we were thirty-somethings and, easier than expected I might add, we channeled our twenty something selves.  I am pretty sure my thirty something self, channeling one decade prior, had a lot more fun than my way too mellow twenties self actually had.  It was awesome.   And, since we really are much closer to 40 than to 20 we spent Sunday at the spa, which was very much needed.   Are there weekends better than that?

My mom told me, when I began having children, that my friends will always be my friends but I would soon make friends through my kids, because of my kids.   I did not fully understand this at the time.  Some of my best friends have been so for nearly 20 years.  But, so it goes.  And time passes.  Some relationships dwindle.  Others grow stronger.  Real friends are always there.  My girls are my girls and nothing changes that.   But, it's also true, that over time, friends change, relationships change, we change, and welcoming new, close friends is great, though it does not replace our old friends.  Just like we still love our first born just as much when we birth our second children.  Our love is multiplied, not divided.

Four years ago I wrote this post.  It was true, then.   All of it.  The fact that I had to work really hard to see my closest friends (I still do) and the part that these new girls I was meeting were just that....new.  All these  years later there are far less definitive lines between the old friends and the new friends, the close friends and the new friends.  What I hadn't known back then was how much I would have in common with these girls I was meeting, who kids were (are) the same age as my own.  How much fun we could have together.  How close our husbands could become.  I value these friendships, and know that new friends can, too, become best friends.

We (these friends and I) had a conversation once, "how long do you need to be friends with a new friend before they are no longer new?"  Our answers varied:  5 years: 10 years; ultimately we decided it was a feeling (40,000 memory miles) and not a quantifiable number.  With that I surely agree.

Any friend that you can be your true self with, and they with you, is no longer a new friend....just a good friend. I'm lucky to have good friends!!