When I was a young, making friends never seemed to be an issue. Even for a fairly shy girl like me, friends just were. As an adult it is a little more complicated.
My first friends were the neighborhood kids. Laurie was a year younger than I and she had three little brothers who always wanted to play with us. (We really hated that!) Barb was a year older and went to a parochial school – very exotic. Scott and Tony lived down the street – Scott was my age and his sister Tony was a year younger. I remember playing school with Laurie and her brothers in their backyard – playing jump the hedge with all the neighborhood kids (yes, we actually made up games) – and setting up a neighborhood carnival in Barb’s backyard with the help of our older brothers and their friends. Ours was a childhood of running games: SPUD, Statues, and Red Light - Green Light. When it got dark, we retired to our individual homes (or stayed outside and played flashlight tag – screaming around whose ever house we happened to end up at). Life was simple.
Then we started school and the friend pool deepened. You sat next to someone in class, you talked, you played at recess, and boom -- they were your friend. We now played games that needed more participants (Kick the Can, Capture the Flag, Ditch). We walked to the local sledding hill where we spent hours on the toboggan or headed to the local ice rink where we played girls catch the boys because the boys had stolen the hats off of our heads – early flirting, although we did not realize it – and Red Rover, Red Rover (if they older kids let us) - all to the music of Diana Ross and the Supremes blaring over the facility loudspeakers. To this day, I can’t hear “Baby Love” without thinking of the ice rink – it brings back memories of the chase games we played, the laughter of my friends, and the smells of the forced hot air combined with the sweat drenched bodies nestled in the concrete warming house.
As happens, we all got older and moved on to High School – and the mode of making friends stayed basically the same. Sit next to someone in class, giggle about boys instead of playing at recess, eat lunch together, and participate in school clubs and activities. Now, instead of playing Kick the Can, we went to football games, the local A&W, high school dances and the occasional field party. We could talk for hours and hours – sharing our deepest secrets and desires, our dreams of the future, and worries about making the grade in college. Even though we have all gone our separate ways, I still consider these ladies to be my “best friends” and keep in close contact.
Next came the early working years – when most of my friendships developed as a result of spending eight or more hours a day together doing a similar job. Our common ground – we were all just starting out in our careers and life as a newly minted “adult”. We discovered our freedom together - going out dancing, enjoying happy hour, seeing movies, and just hanging. We met others through our new network of friends and we continue to keep in contact with some while most fell away.
After a few years as a working single I met my husband, and like many others of my age, transitioned into married life where we began the task of raising a daughter. Children, we discovered, created a new way to make friends – through our daughter and her activities. Many, but not all, of my Minnesota friendships began because our children participated in the same activities. Or we were neighbors and our kids were of similar age and thus friends. While our kids played soccer or basketball or went to Girl Scout outings or church activities, we parents got to know each other. Instead of talking about our deepest secrets and desires as we did in our teen years, we talked about kids and parenting. We celebrated our children’s triumphs and commiserated through their disappointments. And as our daughters grew up and went their separate ways, we parents discovered a bond had formed that continues today. While we don’t see each other often because of our move, we do still send Christmas cards, are Facebook friends, and get together whenever the opportunity arises.
And that brings me to today – an empty nester living in a new state, in a new neighborhood, working with new group of people, trying to figure out how a fifty-something woman makes new friends. Oh to be a child again! I have discovered that at my age, making friends is work. I have to create opportunities to meet people and then take the (sometimes difficult) step of moving things to the next level. Meeting people is not the issue. I work with a great group of people, but most are at a different stage of their life than I am and we are all scattered around the metro area. Last spring Lance and I moved into our newly built house – but have yet to really get to know our neighbors. (Where are kids when you need them?) We joined a church and became active participants (yeah!). I joined a women’s group, cantor at the early service, and my husband and I are part of a monthly dinner group. I have met so many great people! Now, the hard part: take things to the next level. My daughter tells me to just go for it and ask someone to coffee – they won’t refuse. Is she correct? I sure hope so because I need to add a little Colorado silver to my life. Wish me luck – and if you live in Colorado and someone you hardly know asks you to have coffee – please say yes!
