Mommyhood and Friendship | What Changes?

While awake at 4:30am rocking my giggling, bubble-blowing, not-sleeping daughter, I remembered gchat and my days of working a desk job — The days when my work friends were on the other side of some cubicle walls and my home friends were at my fingertips in a group chat all day every day. I lived with my college friends. I went out with my local friends. I traveled hours for the sole purpose of seeing my faraway friends before we ever felt like it had been too long. And then I gulped and welled up a little and thought, wow…it’s definitely been too long.

I don’t mean to sound like I’m 68 years old and/or live in a world where Facebook and texting don’t exist. I haven’t lost touch with my ‘high school cronies’ or ‘college buddies’ in the sense that I don’t know where they live or who they’re dating (or marrying) or how to contact them. We aren’t that out of touch. We’re just absolutely not in the same amount of ‘touch’ we were in before I went and became a mom. 

So what’s different now? Why does motherhood inevitably halt friendships? Why did I naively think that mine would be immune? And why am I tearing up about it at the ungodly hour of…Lydia it is still nighttime hunny why are we awake?!?

My day to day activities have changed. My day job no longer involves constant screentime. When I do go into work (2 days a week) as a nurse, I all but fall off the face of the earth for 14 hours, unable to breathe, eat or pee, nevermind communicate with the outside world or attempt to make new work friends. Not ideal conditions for friendship maintenance or creation. When I stay home with my little bundle of saliva the day involves feeding, changing, development promoting/playing, attempting to put a very awake baby down for naps and repeating these things over and over again. I don’t come close to logging into gchat. I don’t even know where my laptop is right now… I have sporatic sips of cold (different from iced) coffee in between the above mentioned activities. I babble at a little human who responds with eyebrow raises, nonsensical sounds and, thank God, many toothless smiles. My husband calls multiple times to ensure my sanity is intact, I tweet about sleep routines,  perform mediocre renditions of songs from Frozen for an audience of 2, if you include the dog… and shoot down the home goods cashiers TJX credit card offer for the third time this week. These are my regularly scheduled social interactions. 

I’m not complaining. Perhaps that’s not clear… at all.. I’m not sure why that came out sounding  whiny and almost irate. False I tell you false! I love every minute of these days!… They just take way more time than I ever would have thought pre-mommyhood. I love my new reality… my home, my little family unit, my entire life… I just also miss my friends. 

My main focus right now has to be the baby, obviously, of course… There is nothing surprising or new about the idea that becoming a mom requires intense dedication and a huge lifestyle adjustment. Motherhood is challenging, overwhelming, and miraculous. All the good. All the difficult. It is all-encompassing. Routines become a necessity, and I’m realizing just how difficult it can be to incorporate anything above and beyond them into the day. Hours fly by while I conquer the same repetitive baby care tasks and I forget the importance of making time for the social interactions that used to be so habitual and come so naturally. I forget that friendships even exist until I open my email or get a text message from a friend and immediately feel all the emotions simultaneously. All of them. 

Where we are in life has changed. I’m exactly where I want to be and so are my friends. Those are just all very different places. It used to be all laid out for us — childhood, then high school, then college, then some post-grad adventures and entering the real world. Step by life-stage step, we knew what would come next. Even if I didn’t see my friends regularly or talk to them all the time, we were all following that same trajectory. There was a connectedness in that. Now it’s a freaking free for all!! I’m a married mom with friends who are married moms, married almost-moms, engaged dog-moms, single not-moms, dating plant-moms.. professionals, grad students, world travelers and hoboes (just kidding, hold the hoboes). Obviously to each their own, and variety is the spice of life, and what have you… But I liked the comfort in knowing that my friends were all going to understand my life stage so intently because they were there too.

Not everyone is a mom right now. I’m barely one myself. But this transition is unlike any I’ve ever experienced and it would take far more than a phonecall catch-up sesh to bring someone up to speed. And I’m finding it difficult to pull it together enough to even call someone. Therein lies the rub.

But what hasn’t changed? Me. I’m still the small, open-hearted, nostalgia-loving, oversharer who uses the word grateful too often. I’m still the emotionally-charged little spark that’s obsessed with singing and hugs. I’m still me. And all of my friends are still them. And my friendships, at their core, are still as strong as they ever were. 

So maybe I’m just missing gchat and haven’t fully embraced an alternate, more practical method of regular communication… As if there aren’t a thousand other options today. Maybe I’m being overdramatic (oh so likely). Maybe if need to try harder. But maybe friendships just face challenges. And maybe the strongest ones weather the storm of staggered life stages. And maybe they come out on the other side stronger because you remained friends even when it wasn’t easy.

My friend sent me this article yesterday about adult friendships. I think it summed up my feelings quite accurately. 

Friendship is going days, weeks, months or even years without an actual face-to-face conversation, subsisting only on text messages and emails and Facebook status updates, but when you’re together it feels like the perfect mixture of family, home, familiarity and love—which is enough to sustain you until next time.

…and it will.

I’m both sorry and not for falling off the friend grid, friends.  I’ve got both excuses and legit reasons. But even if I’m not talking to you, I love you and miss you and cannot wait to see you. Thank you for sustaining me from wherever you are because I know that if I can (or need to) reach out you will be there.   

2 comments on “Mommyhood and Friendship | What Changes?

  1. Bean! You are an amazing mom and an even more wonderful friend, it’s going to take more than forgetting to text us back occasionally to get rid of us!! I’m sorry to say but you’re stuck with the lot of us you call friends. Can’t wait to be on the same side of the ocean as you and be able to spend the day with you and Drool-ey Lydie bug 🙂 Lots of love my dear friend and mama, lots of love!!

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