Friendship

Over the past year, I have been grieving the loss of a broken friendship. I have been through this before, as I am sure many of you have also, but my kids, especially my daughter, were watching me in the aftermath.

In reality, we are just seeing the highlights.  We imagine what life must be like for people who appear to have it “all together,” and we fill in the blanks with unrealistic, heightened versions of reality.

I will always consider her my best friend because she is the best friend I’ve ever had. There’s no replacing anything we had – and that was just one more lesson I had to learn and another part of grieving the loss of the friendship. 

If you are reading this, and you are the new mom in town, keep trying…. keep showing up and smiling. Keep chatting about the weather and how kids lose their gloves like 416 times a winter.

“I wish you would thank me.”Confused, I asked, “For what? “For doing things for you. Like going to this family gathering. I know part of being in a relationship is doing things you don’t want to do for the person you love. I just wish you would say thank you.”

Some of us are struggling to maintain long-standing friendships. Some of us are longing for close friendships and struggling to find them. Whether you live near your friends or not, text messages can become a regular way to communicate our quick thoughts, especially our parenting successes and failures.

Friendship in the motherhood years can be challenging. Busy schedules, needy kids, and “Mom Brain” can all contribute to our ability to connect or stay in touch with others.

Let’s face it, Moms, we all need a night out! Being a mom is an exhausting, self-sacrificing, and, most of the time, thankless job (even though it is worth the work). So sometimes we need to get out of all of the serving and just have a little fun. So gather up some friends and try these ideas and places for your next Mom's Night Out!

I’ve always heard that major life events tend to separate true friends from the rest of them. I was fully prepared that being the first of my friends to get married and start a family would mean that I would inevitably be leaving some people in my past.