Make new friends
But keep the old,
One is silver,
And the other gold.
That little song, which I haven’t heard or sung since the summer of 1975 popped into my head today after visiting with a neighbor.
We have some neighbors that have moved in recently that I’ve been getting to know a bit better lately. Their oldest son is almost exactly half-way between the ages of the twins & #3, their oldest girl is the same age as #3, and then they have two or three more girls a bit younger than that (I can’t tell, there are always lots of little girls over there and I’m never certain which ones belong to whom), and finally the baby Christopher who is 8 months.
Amy & Chris (the parents of this brood) are just a bit younger than Hubby and I, and I’ve been getting to know Amy quite a bit lately. She found out that I canned and expressed an interest in learning, so today we made Dilly beans with some beans she got from her sister. She also got a bunch of beets, and we may do those later, if they don’t get eaten first!
Amy asked me today if I would be interested in getting out to walk daily after the kids are all back in school, and we are making plans for that now. I’ve been eager to find someone to do this with during the day. My next door neighbor Nikki may also join us as she has now become a parent. Amy and Nikki can pop their little ones into their strollers, I can pop the dog on her leash, and we will troop around the neighborhood like good little mommies trying to become shadows of our current selves!
I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed having girlfriends. I miss not being able to get together with my brother & Kathy. I miss not seeing Fran as often as I used to (I still think you and Dave should move down here). I miss my friend Lynne (I worked with her Hubby Rich in the Air Force) from before that. She lived up the road from us when I was active duty, and she and I used to do a “girls night out” with a couple times a month on top of getting together 3 or 4 times a week just to chat and let our babies (both boys only 5 months apart in age) play together.
There was one girl from when I went to college, Pam, with whom I stayed in contact for a while. Like most young adults, we drifted apart when we went our separate ways. I miss some of the experiences we had together.
Prior to that I had my friends from my High School and Drum Corps years: Timi, Jodi, Ginger, Angel, Diane, Karen, Kim, Sandi, Joyce, Mindy, Jody and my now SIL Pinkspiritlady. I still e-mail with most of them, some of them have drifted out of my life for good, and a couple of them I stay in a bit closer contact with. We don’t see each other more than a couple times a year at the most, but I still value their friendships a great deal.
There are also the gentlemen I still count as friends, but I don’t stay as close in touch with them as Hubby tends to get a touch of the green-eyed monster pertaining to friends of mine with a higher testosterone level than I have. I keep in touch with many of them through e-mail, and the occasional brushes in real life when we are at Drum Corps functions or making the circuit in our old home town and we bump into them. Many of these gentlemen I wish I could maintain a closer relationship with as they were very good friends in my past. It isn’t worth the grief caused to my marriage to keep that up though.
I think of all the friends from my past, and the potential of all my future friends. I hope I can get back in touch with those I’ve drifted away from, and continue to stay close to the current and future people I forge friendships with.
I’ve waxed philosophical enough for tonight. It’s time to find my way to slumber land so I can face tomorrow and all that it will hold with a sound mind.