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Babies: 3 - 6 Months
Those of you far away from family...
How in the world do you handle it?
The only person from my friends/family I live close to is my mom. And I love her very much, but I need some of my friends. I just found out that we're not moving back to my hometown like we planned. DH doesn't see the big deal, cause his only friends are his family. And he's okay with that.
I have 2 close girlfriends that I've known for several years. They've been through everything with me and are like my sisters.
1 in particular I'm extremely close with. I miss her so much! I feel like she's moving on with her life and because of distance and not being able just to up and go up there all the time, I'll soon be one of those old friends that you still love, but don't really know that well. I'm just so bummed. I see her pictures of hanging out at the pool, BBQ'ing on the weekends, going to the lake. Those are all things we all used to do together. And now.. if DH and I do anything at all, we just hang out with the IL's. The people I think I have the least in common with of all.
This is not a friendship I want to lose. How do you keep those friendships alive? Or do you? I'm so freakin bummed out.
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Re: Those of you far away from family...
I've lived away from my hometown since I was 19 (I'm 34). First was when I moved a few hours away to college, then a few provinces away for work, and then to another country.
I just do it because that's where life took me. I haven't seen my parents or my sister in over a year now because we live so far apart (They're in Nova Scotia, while I'm in Tennessee). It's really hard, but I talk to them on the phone almost every day. I text with my sister daily (multiple times.. we text pics back and forth of our kids mostly). Plus, we all share pics on facebook.
As for friendships, my closest friendships with people from home have definitely changed. They still exist thanks to the wonders of social networking, and I see them when I go home to visit once every year or so, but no, we are not a part of each others daily lives anymore. That doesn't mean that I don't still love them dearly, and I know they feel the same about me.
I've made new friends where I live now. It took time, but I have 2 really good girlfriends as well as some casual friends that I've met through work and church. We also live close to DH's family, so we see them regularly.
I don't say this to be snarky, but I wonder how old you are and if you've not been on your own for very long.
I know it's hard.. really hard.. at first. I hope you can find a way to get out there and make new friends while still finding ways to keep your old friendships alive and special.
It's definitely hard. DH and I moved from FL to VA 3.5 months after we got married.(He's in the military, so we had no choice, and no friends or family around) We had both of our babies there and now, 5 years later, we're back in FL. Keeping friendships with that kind of distance is definitely hard, and even though you can't hand out on weekends as often, I found that keeping in touch either through phone, email, or fb helped. Obviously, it's not the same...but it's something...and that way when you do get to hang out you're at least somewhat clued in on what's been going on in your friends life.
Also, plan trips. Either you go to her or she'll come to you. Good luck!!
No snark taken :-) I've been on my own since I was 18, fresh out of highschool, straight to working/living with a roommate then just living alone, and I'm 26. So, no... it's not THAT long, but it's not like it's fresh or new either. I've just always lived close enough to where I could do things like just up and go eat dinner on a random day if I felt like it, and now I can't do things like that.
I talked to my friend and she feels the same way I do. So we're both invested in keeping our friendship up. It's just really hard to see all of the things we used to do together, being done completely without me. She also said it's really hard to be getting to know DD only through pictures as well.
I honestly know part of my problem is pure jealousy. They don't have kids yet. So they still have a lot of the freedom that DH and I don't have anymore. And every time we get a sitter, we end up with the IL's rather than going out with DH and trying to make new friends. Which is something we've got to work on.
I moved 9 hours away from everyone I knew about 4 years ago. I met my DH where I use to live, which is where I grew up and lived my entire life. He had moved there for a job and wanted to move back here because his dad was sick and he doesn't have much family. Since his dad was sick and he was able to find a job here with excellent pay I completely supported this decision. It is definitely harder than I expected.
I have lost touch with a lot of my friends. There are a couple that I stay in regular contact with but it is hard because we only talk on the phone every couple of weeks or so, which means I know when I call them (or they call me) I will end up on the phone for quite a while so sometimes I don't call as much as I should. It turns into one of those things where I think: I want to call (insert name here) but I know I will be on the phone for an hour and I don't have the time today, I will call tomorrow. Then the next thing you know it has been two weeks and I still haven't called. My friends call me too but I think the same thing happens to them at times.
One of the saddest things to me is I have lost touch with my former best friend. We had been friends through our entire lives but when I moved I was the only one putting effort into keeping the friendship going. I thought maybe she was mad at me for moving and didn't feel like she needed to put in extra effort to keep in touch since I was the one that moved. I would call her and we would talk and she would always say "we need to keep in touch better" but then would never make the effort to call. Eventually I stopped putting in so much effort because when you are the one that lives away from everyone you know there are a lot of people to keep in touch with and when someone isn't making an effort back and others are you tend keep in touch with the people that are. Now it has been over a year since I have talked to her at all besides the occasional contact on FB.
I have also had a hard time making good friends here. I have made tons of "friendly acquaintances" and even a few people that I would classify as friends but I am still lacking a best friend here. The people I am friends with here are the type of friends where we will go to their house for a BBQ or we will have them over for a football game. But I don't have a close enough friendship with anyone here that I would feel comfortable calling them to complain about DH or MIL or something but I just call my friends back home then. I still have faith that I will find a good friend here soon, those friendships take time to build and have to be someone you really mesh well with. I am definitely to busy to feel lonely though.