Friends without Kids

I remember when I was pregnant with Lily, my mom told me that pretty soon my friends would mostly consist of other people with kids. I was a bit appalled by the whole idea. One, because I didn’t really have any friends with kids so I was about to be SOL if that was true and two, I didn’t want to become THAT girl who couldn’t hang with her old friends.

Now, I’m not here to say that I am no longer in LOVE with my (amazing, beautiful, intelligent) friends who don’t have kids, because I am. I am so in love with them it hurts, but the honest truth is we have grown apart. I truly believe it is a temporary distance and I can already feel it closing as I come out of the intense haze that tiny people create in their first couple years of life, but the reality is that the people I see, the people I relate to, are my friends with kids. I haaaaaaate being that girl. I don’t think my life is better, or worse, than my friends’ lives. I know they love me and they love my girls, but our lives are just so different.

I’m still in the place where your kids are so little and all your brainpower is focused on their every need at every moment. I guess it is just easier to relate to other people who are also in the thick of it (they too are amazing and beautiful and intelligent, for the record.) It is nice to talk to someone who thinks it is normal to discuss poop for 45 minutes, who understands my fears about starting pre-school, and weaning, and I don’t know, semi-sharp objects?

I have no doubt that I will reconnect with my other friends in good time as I am able to reclaim a bit of my own identity separate from my kids. I chose to do this and I am happy to be able to be there completely in this intense time of motherhood, but it makes it a bit difficult to get out, you know?

I miss my friends. I miss sitting around and laughing about silly things and crying about serious things and then laughing about crying. Friends, if you read this, I miss you! I’m not gone. I’m just taking a leave of absence from my life as a regular human. Don't give up on me.
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