On Friends and Isolation

What to say? It isn’t necessarily something I plan on. It isn’t something I hope for. It just happens to be the result of my state of affairs.

The reasons? Well perhaps they just don’t know what to say. Perhaps they don’t know how to respond? Or perhaps our set of experiences in life just fall too far apart to adequately support friendship and conversation?

Don’t get me wrong. I have a few friends (one or two) and I’m a fairly friendly gal myself. And really, you don’t have to have experience scheduling your own child’s PCA to have the modest appropriation of being “my friend”. But it sure does help.

So……From one PCA scheduling mom to another…..How exactly are we going to get together? When does Joey (random name here) have therapy? Oh….no that won’t work Gracie has therapy on that day. You know, any day after 7pm works fine, I mean, as long as it is during the week and you can come to MY house, oh and it ISN’T Tuesday or Thursday…... Oh…After 7 doesn’t work for you, UNLESS it is a Tuesday or Thursday? I see…….Maybe we’ll just discuss this another time. We’ll think of something…..

I often don’t fit in with single, childless women my age. I just don’t have the time to pursue the same endeavors they do. Add to that my incessant chatter about this child or that, and ya, I doubt they find me very exciting at all. I also often don’t fit in with women my age who have children. I have all those same milestones to talk about, well perhaps in a different order and punctuated with sometimes bizarre events associated with them, but we have a lot in common I’d expect.

Perhaps it is partly me? I don’t want to explain differences ahead of time so I don’t. And then, I have to. Something comes up that I didn’t plan for and didn’t expect and then I have to explain why my child is different from hers. I mean, if we can make it past that point and they aren’t freaked out and our kids still get along (okay, they obligingly hang out in the same room together taking care not to do anything that might indicate interest in one or the other) and we don’t mind drinking our coffee (or tea) in silence it just might work. (This is where wine is helpful….)

I understand the value in a friend. I have discovered the time and energy that is required to maintain one (more than a car, seriously). I treasure what small friendships I have because of this. Because I don’t have to explain to a friend. My schedule doesn’t freak a friend out. Bizarre events? They don’t even phase her.

So what if at times I feel a bit isolated?

Isolation breeds intensity. And intensity is exactly what I have to offer a friend.

Well, that and some really good wine now and again……