Let's Be Friends!

My phrase since moving here has been, "Hey! Let's be friends!" Everyone in the retirement community has been nothing but nice and helpful, but finding people that you have a genuine connection with and want to actually spend time with is a lot harder than people realize. I always thought moving away sounded glamorous. I imagined a city with a vibrant social scene, instant friends, good church, and a cool job all just waiting for me to arrive. Then I moved. And quickly realized moving away to my fantasy world does sounds glamorous, but sadly my fantasy world doesn't exist. In reality, moving is far from glamorous. It requires you to start over from scratch in so many areas of life, and it never promises that everything you loved where you were would magically travel with you and be waiting for you when you arrive.

Good friends are hard to find, which was a lesson that I never really learned growing up. Friends were everywhere and making them seemed easy. I walked down the street and asked the neighbor to play. BAM I have a best friend. (Now, I am pretty sure that if I walked down the street and ask my neighbor if they wanted to be friends they would think I was crazy!) As I grew and became involved with extra curricular activities new people entered my friendship circle. I had tons of friends. Some of those friendships have lasted and some haven't. I randomly bumped into a childhood girlfriend over the holidays. As we were searching for common ground, I thought to myself at one point in life we shared our most intimate thoughts with each other and now we are scrambling to find something to talk about. I should have kept in touch with you over the years.

I have made a couple of good friends, but I have also learned the value of keeping up with old friends and that to make good friends, I have be a good friend.