Friendships

I'd planned on writing a post on friendships for quite some time, but the topic seemed so vast that I kept putting it off. Until now....

Today's post is about my personal experience with friendships and what they mean to me. I'm going to continue over the next few weeks exploring female friendships including common problems faced, tips for making new friends and so forth (any suggestions on topics feel free to share) So sorry, today is all about me, me, me... tune out if you are bored already!

In primary school I was the leader. An only child until 12 I was bossy and that is putting it mildly. When I hit Standard 4 and the hormones of pre-puberty began to surge, the cattiness began. The 'lets not be friends with her anymore', 'she's not coming to my sleep-over', 'you're my best friend now', and all those typical girl drama's began. It was a precurious time, sometimes I was popular and sometimes I was on the out, and then oh how it was the end of the world!


What I learnt from these early friendships was a simple lesson;  if you back stab, stir trouble, exclude others and have a general mean spirit in friendship, this will be the types of friends you attract.

I wouldn't call the years between 13-17 my glory years. At times they were really hard, confusing and overwhelming. I didn't find a group at college that I felt I fitted in with. I was either too much of a rebel or not quite rebel enough. I longed for friendships that came easily, where I could be me. Although I'm not sure I even knew who 'me' was during this teenage years or self discovery.


One of my best experiences at the age of 17, was my part-time job at Just Jeans. I was taken under the wing by three girls in their mid twenties and I had a blast. They would dress me up and get me into the nightclubs (back when you needed to be 21), they had stylish flats and huge wardrobes, cute older guys to hang around with. I had friends (surrogate big sisters) with life experience that I looked up to in awe.

The turning point for me came at 21. I met two girls through a mutual friend and they became the bosom buddies I could tell anything. The type of friends where as long as they were by my side I could face anything. We lived out of eachother's pockets.  I felt so grateful to have finally found what I had been searching for in a friendship for so long.

It was at this time I realized an important key to my personality.  I preferred spending most of my time with a few really good mates.I felt most comfortable getting to know a couple of people really well as opposed to socializing with lots of different friends.

Kim, Kirsten and I were in-separable. we called ourselves the three musketeers and our group never grew. Although we would complain about this sometimes on the whole we built up too much history and memories  for anyone else to fit in easily. The uniqueness of the friendship was that three was not a crowd in our case, we could spend time one on one, or all together, no one ever got jealous and there was never any backstabbing between us.

We celebrated our 21st together, next came the engagements, then the Hen's nights. Kim and Kirsten were bridesmaids at my wedding and Me and Kirsten for Kim's wedding. Some years later I was also Bridesmaid  at Kirsten's big day. Each friend is a god-mother to Bianca and Sienna and Kim is the mother of my beautiful god-daughter Samantha.

The only time our friendships ever came to a curve on the road was at the 'starting a family' stage. We partied a lot, and when I fell pregnant a month after my honeymoon in Thailand (of which Kirsten and Chris's groomsmen Ry joined us) we entered into unknown territory.

But especially once Kim had Sam the bond between the two of  us became stronger than ever. I was at Samantha's birth wiping Kim's head with a cloth and sobbing as she held her baby girl for the first time. She rushed in the hospital room 20 minutes after Sienna was born saying 'damn I missed it'  and me replying 'sorry I didn't realise she would come out that fast!

Kim and I can chill out in comfortable silence, I can walk into her house and raid the fridge, I can disagree with her, be brutally honest, tell her my most embarrassing secrets.

The strange thing is that Kim and I actually dont have a lot in common. She likes sports, I would prefer a head cold than to play a game of volley-ball. I am passionate about make-up with drawers full of the stuff, Kim needs her Thin Lizzy if that. I'm better at philosophical and emotional conversation .  Kim will stop and chat to everyone she knows in the streets and is great at remembering names, and what people have been up to. 

Now that I have kids, I do feel the need for more than two friends. I now have friends I go for walks with, go to play centre and music class with, friends I can talk deeply and philosophically with and friends whom I catch up with at BBQ's every now and then.

Parenting is such a mammoth task and I have come to rely on my female friendships a lot more. Together we decipher what being a mother is about, bounce marital  issues off each other (that means bitch about our husbands), compare notes on the state of our post pregnancy bodies and the list goes in.... it really has become such an important and cherished part of my life.

So take some time to think about your friendships, ask yourself some of these questions...

Do you prefer to have heaps of friends and share your time around them all or just a special few?
Do you feel like you need more friends in your life?
Do you feel like you you have too many to spend time with them all?
Are there friends you have sadly outgrown?
Do you want to spend more time nurturing new friendships?