It's always simultaneously bizarre and wonderful to see old friends. I slip back into the person I used to be in college. Chatty and free, uninhibited and zealous. I find myself struggling for topics of conversation that don't include our girls, toddler antics or adorable baby milestones, but somehow it always comes back to me.
It's taken some getting used to. I want to be fully me, but today, that's mostly a mom, a little bit a wife and maybe 5% the person that my friends knew me as in college. It's nice to have a night to be reminded fully of who that was, but hard to reconcile that with the mama and wife I've become.
I find I often envy the lives of my non parent, even unwedded friends. Everything sounds so exciting, exotic even. Weekly dinner dates with friends? adorable wardrobes filled with the latest fashions? late nights filled with good food, drink and free spirited fun? yes please!
But I had my fun. I drank good beer and enjoyed conversation with good friends. Laughed and reminisced, even danced a bit. But at the end of the night I got to climb into the passenger seat with my husband at the wheel and drive off into the night together.
In college Ian and I had more of an old fashioned courtship when compared to the modern day claustrophobia that can be dating. We had occasional solo dates, met up for caf meals, studied (no really, studied) late into the night. We'd see movies together (if we could ever agree on one), run into each other at the town pub with our separate friends, and I'd of course spoil him with free coffee while at work. We did our things, just together. Slowly it turned into this amazing companionship. Then we got engaged and married 5 months later and moved 2 states away all by our lonesome. We set up our home, started a family and now here we are.
We often comment that we have no friends. I guess when compared to college we don't. We see our good Chicago friends occasionally and new parent friends even more seldomly. Half of the reason is definitely the girls and how tired we all are at the end of even the best of days, but the other is that we have each other. I'm living with my best friend. I get to snuggle with him every night and bicker with him most mornings and while I definitely miss the company of my raucous exuberant college buddies, I wouldn't change this existence for anything.
I love weddings, not only for witnessing commitment and love but for how it reminds me of the promise I've made to be here with this man that I love forever. It's kind of amazing.
I hope someday we have it all. Time and the means to go out with friends more often and feel like our "old selves" more frequently. But the truth is I'm pretty good with how things are right now. I sure do love all three of my best friends that just happen to live with me every day.
I hear you. My favorite way to socialize is to cook food for people, and that's much harder now with a baby. Also our kitchen is like something that would be found below decks on a small yacht.
ReplyDelete