In and Out

I've thought a lot about friends and friendships lately, because it seems that friendships as an adult have a tendency to come in and go out with a lot more frequency that I would like.

1. A was one of my three real friends for the two years that we lived in Las Vegas.  I've found that as an adult my only friendships have been formed with people that I either worked with or that I've gone to church with.  A was a work friend.  In fact, she had a big role in me actually getting that job after finishing a temp assignment for the company.  She was one of the very few people in the huge organization that I had enough in common with to really enjoy talking and want to socialize with outside of work.  We lost touch after I had M and quit the job.  We talked here and there for the first six months, but then I went home for almost a month to help my mom after a hip replacement, and when I got back to Vegas I called A three times to check on her.  She had announced her pregnancy when M was 3 months old, so she was due right around the time that I returned from Utah and called her.  With no returned call after three messages, I thought maybe there was a hint I should be taking and I didn't call her again.  Until last week, when I decided I wanted to try one more time.  Why does it matter?  I keep asking myself that.  Because it's extremely unlikely that I'll ever see her again.  It's not like we're going to live in Vegas again, and to be honest I don't really see us ever vacationing there--two years was plenty to get it out of our system.  So I think the answer to the question has to do with the first line of this entry--that I'm not okay with friendships just coming and going like something disposable in my life.  I've always been one of those who takes a lot of time to develop friendships, and I don't have a lot of friend.  Quality, not quantity.  So once I spend enough time with a person to really consider them a friend, it's hard for me to just let that go and be okay with never speaking to them again.  But it seems that maybe most people are okay with that scenario, because every time I have a good friend that I continue to contact here and there just to say hello, I am forced to recognize that, uh, I'm the only one doing so.  I am the one contacting them, not the other way around.  But honestly?  I'm okay with that.  I have to be.  Because if I think about that too deeply, then I have to consider some things that aren't very flattering to myself, and I just don't want to.  Whatever.  I figure we wouldn't have become friends in the first place if I was all that repellant, so I'm just not going to worry about all of those possibilities.  All I know is that every once in a while I just want to reach out to those people that I've lost track of, and who have lost track of me, and just say hello and see how they're doing.  I sometimes think that in my ideal world we wouldn't all have to move around so much to find decent jobs, so we could stick around with our friends and not have to say goodbye.  But then I realize that if that were the case, I would still be stuck with the friends I had in school.  And um.  With the exception of 3 of those. . .well, let's just say I'm better off having had the opportunity to meet and become friends with so many other people.                   So A.  She answered my call this time.  And she was very excited to talk to me.  Said she thinks about me all the time too.  Has a one year old (said she had just had the baby when I called three times last year and just couldn't get unburied enough to return calls to everyone).  So I feel better.  I mean, at least I know I didn't do something to alienate a friend, which is always nice to know.  And she's emailed me twice since we spoke last week, so I'm very happy to have that friendship back--at least on a keep-in-touch level.
2. S was my first friend here in the South.  A church friend.  The first person to invite us to her house, the only one I've gotten close enough to so far that she has called me every day since my surgery just to check on me.  Even T hasn't done that, so I consider that a very nice thing to do.  Now, why is this one on the "in and out" list?  Because we live near a military base and a lot of the people in our church are military people, which makes them necessarily in and out.  So S and her husband will be moving to a different base sometime next year.  I know it's a long time.  And I could go into the fact that we will very likely be moving away next year too, but that's a whole nother anxiety attack post.  But anyway, that's another friend to know that I'll be missing.
3. J was my second friend here in the South, another church friend.  She also happens to be a military wife, and they are officially moving to another state next month.  But she also happens to be one of the most genuinely nice people I've ever met in my life.  Just a good, kind, down-to-earth person.  From the first time I met her I've thought that she's the kind of person that I could imagine having as my next-door-neighbor for the rest of my life.  My ideal next-door-neighbor, she's just that nice.  And I won't see her again after November.
4. S is yet another military wife.  And a church friend, but I met her at the gym long before I ever saw her at church.  We worked out at the same time every morning and she made a point to talk to me, and then through conversation we discovered that we go to the same church.  I probably have the most in common with her out of all of the new friends in the South, so when she and her family move away next month it'll probably feel like the biggest loss.  I have nothing redeeming to say about that, no positive note to end on.  I'm just sad that that's another person leaving.
5. A is the friend-in-the-South that I know the least, but she isn't going anywhere.  She's also a church friend (hmm, I guess stay-at-home moms who only make friends either at work or at church pretty much only make friends at church).  But her husband is not in the military and both she and her husband are from here originally, so it would be really surprising if they moved away.  So that brings us back to the back-of-my-mind thought that we will be moving away next summer, but let's forget about that for a moment.  Looking at my list, I guess A will literally be my only friend left here after the other three leave, which I have to admit makes me panic a little bit.  Probably because like I said, I know her the least.  Technically I don't think I could even consider her a friend at this point.  Just an aquaintance who is nice and with whom I have enough in common that I think we could become friends pretty easily.  So that's the hopeful note to end on--at least I have one person to work on a friendship with, and hopefully it will develop.