I Don’t Have Friends
I have fellow moms, or ‘mom friends’
The other day, a fellow mom brought her girls over for a playdate. Our kids tore around the yard and hollered at us about unfair sharing practices and picked their noses and chased each other and gathered sticks and sweated and giggled and cried. They had a great time. Meanwhile, this mom and I sat at my patio table and talked about how we miss having friends.
Let’s rewind.
Notice I referred to this woman as a “fellow mom,” not “a friend.” And notice how we both confessed to each other that we didn’t have friends. There was a pause where we both realized how absurd it was to admit that to each other, and then we moved on, because we both knew what we meant. Of course this woman is my “friend,” and I am hers. We have kids who are the same age. We go to the same gym (or, heh, I will go to that gym again one day). We both have healthy senses of humor. We live in the same neighborhood. We’ve even gone to dinner together on occasion, and it was great.
But what we mean when we say we don’t have friends is that we miss the days of true girlfriendship. I don’t know who she’s picturing when she says this, but I know I’m picturing my best friend, Kathleen, who currently lives a glamorous, child-free life in Los Angeles. Kathleen and I have been besties since high school; we lived…
