Friendship Factor

It seems like I'm always talking about the bond of friendships with my friends who live far away. We move away and then lament about how things are so different or we reminisce about "the good old days" when we were all together and having the best of times. It seems like, while we've all gone in different directions, we miss having those same strong friendships wherever we've ended up.

Before I moved here, I was living in a very transient college town and it was the one thing I disliked most about where I lived. I felt like I was always saying "goodbye" to someone. The same pattern happened for the eight years I lived there. I would meet someone, we'd hit it off and become close friends and then eventually they'd move away. It happened over and over again...until, eventually, I was the one who moved away.

I don't know a lot of people where I live now. I will somewhat blame it on the stage of life I'm in. In Missouri, I was single and had hometown friends, college friends, single work friends, church friends, etc all living close by. My schedule was such that I had plenty of time to socialize and plenty of people with whom to socialize. Where I live now, I've only been working for the past six months and with other people who are married and less likely to get together outside of work. And because everyone you do meet here could live a great distance from one another, it takes a lot more effort/coordination to get together and life is busy...which means I am missing out on some of my local friendships. So, yes, I consider my "friends" here to be a much smaller group. All this to say, I have two friends who live here who are now moving away very soon and I'm feeling pretty sad about it. I just found out about one of them this afternoon which has kind of put me in a funk and feeling a little sad about friendships...or my lack thereof.

And, speaking of friendships, I had another friend send me this article on friendships recently. I found it really interesting. If you get a chance, check it out.

Now that I've vented, it's time to take a hot bath, unwind and get out of my funk.