So, if you're like me, when your friends start having kids, you kind of hate them at first. Not the kids, you haven't even met them yet - your friends. You hate your friends, and you feel like shit about it but... You panic. What the hell guys, why you fuckin' with our very awesome dynamic? (A fair question, but...) At the beginning of this trend amongst friends, usually, you can still say shit like, wow, we're so young, I don't think you know what you're doing (note: they don't. second note: you need to shut up.) It's a lot like when they start to really settle down with their significant others and get married (although sometimes this moment is one and the same). You're just left kind of feeling like - where the fuck did you go?
Here's what you have to know - it is totally valid to feel that way. It is also totally valid for people to want to build a life and a family. It's not personal - and then again, it completely is. I've suffered through this immensely, and it was horrible. I come from a very spread out, distant (physically and emotionally), disjointed family - who I love, but I'm sure would agree - we ain't around for each other a whole lot. Soo - I've always made my friends my family, truly. When these life changes have occurred with my friends, I felt like the bonds I'd built with those people were sort of a lie.
Before this turns into a poor Sarah story - people have different reasons for why they hate their friends as they begin this "adult" life (btw, that's not the only definition of "adult"). Point is, it happens. And yeah, you love them, and you're happy they're happy - but, fuck them, you know?
Whether or not you're being a selfish asshole, this is something, a feeling, that happens - you either are the family builder or the friend that gets left behind. Back to my "here's what you have to know" statement that I didn't actually complete from above - it's ok. It really is. If the friendship is real and deep and true, things circle back around in time. For example, I felt disconnected from my best friend for something in and around 7 years? Something like that. I felt like giving up many times. We went months without speaking - I felt forgotten, and maybe I was. There was a lot of hurt feelings. But I stuck around, I held on (and I guess she must have too) made my appearances and took what I could get - I love my best friend with the whole of my heart and I didn't see that going away, regardless - and ya know what? She came back around. Pretty much on her own - somewhere in there, she just, figured it out, or something. So here we are, and I get to spend time with her and her son, who I love with all my heart, and annoy her husband who stole her from me (I think he's really starting to like me too, in moderation) - and she's everything I remember and more.
Life is crazy, and we are crazy for the way we try to label it and mark it and put one stopping point after another as a way to figure out who, what, where we're supposed to be. Life is fluid, ever-moving, and it does not work the same for everyone. It isn't this thing where you go from childhood to adolescence to college age, graduate at 21 - 24, begin your career, start your forever relationship, get married, have babies, etc etc etc... or, any other version of that (go to grad school, climb mt. everest, blah blah). Even as you reach momentous occasions (which yes you should note and appreciate, of course) it is still coursing forward. And through it all, you don't stop being you - your friends don't stop being themselves! We do experience joy, hardship, we achieve, we fall, and, hopefully, we learn through these things and grow - but things move onward, simultaneously ebb and flow, and we continue to become.
What does this have to do with anything? I don't know? Back up, I said I'm a lil tipsy in the title! Shit y'all.
Anyway, I look at my friendships. My friendships are my everything, and I have many, MANY close friends. Some people think that's not something you can do in a genuine manner. Lacking depth, maybe. I don't see it that way. My friends are so varied and have so many amazing qualities between them all - I have met people in different phases of myself and appreciate so many things about each one. Most of these people I've been friends with for many years now, as I'm in my 30s, and that's one of the amazing benefits of getting older, these long, developed, deep relationships with people you've known since they weren't much more than children. I've seen so much change in myself, and so, so much change in each of my friends. Our relationships have gone from strong, to weak, to almost gone, to strong again, and lots of variations in between. I've watched friends wait until their 30s to hit maximum chaos. I've seen myself become someone who is more balanced than others - which is, in itself, crazy and sort of unbelievable (I'll be back bitches!). Again, life is so fluid and ever changing - but ya know, all - ALL relationships - if they're worth it, if there is that true bond and love and loyalty and chemistry and love and connection and love - they'll last. They'll last through the times when you don't think they will - when you don't even want them to. It might take years...
So yes, at first, your friends might leave you to pursue something else, to have babies, what-the-fuck-ever. And you will hate them. Just give it time. Seeing my friends flesh out their identities through motherhood (or career, or both, whatever) - has made me love them all the more. Their kids are pretty dope too, turns out.
