A Two-Way Street

Wow! I really don't blog much anymore, do I? Well, hopefully I can get back into it this summer, while my husband is deployed and I don't have a lot to do. :)

I was thinking the other day (weird, I know), and I realized that, while I have lots of friends, I don't have many close friends. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I moved around so much growing up. Don't get me wrong, I'm not upset about my upbringing! I think moving around was a wonderful thing for me, and is the reason that I became the person I am today. Moving around gave me experiences that I never would have had if I'd lived in the same place all my life. It made me a more open-minded, tolerant, understanding person than I probably would have been. You can't live in a dozen different places without getting to know hundreds of different kinds of people, and seeing the good in all of them, no matter how different they are from you.

So yeah, even though I hated it at the time, I absolutely see the value in the way I was raised. That's why I have no problem with being married to a military man, and raising my own children the same way. I know it will be really good for them.

The problem with moving around, though, is that it's really hard to make lasting friendships when you only get to know someone for a year or two. Once you move away, that pretty much fizzles out the relationship. At least, it's always been that way for me. I do have a few friends that I still keep in touch with, but it's just not the same once you don't live close by anymore. And most people, unfortunately, are pretty terrible at keeping in touch. I know, I'm one of them! There may be some contact through emails and sites like Facebook, but there's not much.

Sometimes it strikes me how sad it is that I don't have very many close friends. But, to be honest, my family are my best friends. And my husband is my absolute best friend in the entire world. So I can't complain. I've got it pretty good.

Still, women need other women to talk to. We're social animals, and we need that kind of interaction! I'm fairly good at introducing myself to people, although it takes me a while to get really comfortable with them. I manage to make a few friends everywhere I go. The thing is, though, that most people do have several close friends. Most people don't grow up moving all over the world. So, when I make friends with people, even though they consider me a friend, they rarely consider me to be one of their close friends.

For me, though, they are my closest friends! I don't have anyone else. So it's kind of unbalanced. There's always a sense of "I like them more than they like me." I'm not saying that my friends don't like me! But there's usually someone else that they like more. Someone may be my best friend, but I'm not usually theirs.

Again, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to sound sad or pitiful! I have a fantastic life, and I'm content with the way things turned out. I'm just trying to explain how most of my friendships tend to feel, so that you'll understand just how GREAT the next part is!

Here in Abilene, I feel like I've finally found a friend who actually likes me as much as I like her! Crazy, right? It's so great!

Part of it working out that way is probably due to the fact that her family moved here just a couple of weeks before we did. So, when we got here, she still hadn't had a chance to make many friends. The door was wide open. We each recognized that both of us were new, and decided that, since we didn't really have friends here yet, we'd befriend each other.

We were talking about it a couple of weeks ago, actually. One of our first weeks here in Abilene, I ended up sitting next to this fabulous lady at church. She mentioned that her husband was our home teacher, and we chatted for a while. I went home and told Ben, "I'm totally going to be friends with her." Little did I know, she said the same thing about me, to her husband! How funny is that!

It didn't happen right away, of course. She was so cool, and so pretty, that I wasn't entirely sure that she'd want to hang out with a geek like me (I'm not really as confident as I pretend to be). But she was totally friendly, too, and as time went by, we became friends. Now, she's my absolute favorite person in Abilene (excluding my daughter and hubby, of course. Family first!). We talk on Facebook, and I end up laughing so hard that Ben has to check on me to make sure I'm not having a stroke. We hang out, our kids play together, we come up with evil schemes, and hold wagers on things like who can read Harry Potter the fastest. We're planning a sleepover for when our husbands are both out of town. She even let me give her a makeover (not that she needed it)! What, are we 12??? Yeah, pretty much.

I'm actually looking forward to being here in Abilene for the next three years. As much as I hate how hot it is, and as much as I hate Ben having to be deployed all the time, I get the impression that I may finally be forming a lasting friendship. I have the feeling that, once one or the other of us moves away, that's not going to be the end of it. I have very few friends that I can say that about, so it's really exciting!

I could be entirely wrong, of course. Maybe she doesn't actually like me as much as I like her. But if that's the case, she hides it well, so that's good enough for me. It's such an odd feeling, having that kind of friendship! It's great, though!

It's like I told her the other day, "I'm sorry you had to move to Abilene, but I'm so glad you're here!"