Social life

Social life vs. friendships. When M visited this past week, I asked her if she had managed to find any friends in her new town. She somehow adapted my question to answer in terms of her social life, as in needing to find more time for a social life - but never managed to answer in terms of friendships. Of course this got me to thinking, is there a difference?


I guess I would define social life as the broad milieu that includes friends, future friends, waning friends, colleagues, and generally speaking, fellow human beings. Friendships, on the other hand, are more pointed - people who like you, want to know you, respect you, are generally honest with you - no game-playing necessary. I suppose one's social life feeds one's friendships and vice versa.


My challenge has always been the great balancing act - that delicate dance of drawing people into your life with whom you both feel completely at ease, but who also help you discover new parts of yourself. In my 20s, less comfortable in my own skin, and just trying to figure out how to navigate adulthood, I drew similarly insecure people to my life. My friends were an eclectic crowd whose issues and flaws all manifested differently, but were somehow tolerable: the annoyingly cheap, but completely sincere D; the misfit S who was afraid to really connect to people, but who by-golly kept trying to try; colorful & assertive P had it all together, until you realized how fragile she truly was; M had a swagger that belied a weakness I never figured out; and of course, A, the lovely one who always had a boyfriend no matter what... I could go on and on. Me? I somehow managed to fit in and swim with the flotsam and jetsam in the Los Angeles cesspool known as "showbiz."


Enter my 30s, which forced me to define who I was and how I wanted to live my life. A lot of shift happened. My social life morphed as friendships were shed (some by my choice, some by circumstance, and some through painful loss that I may never understand). I found my one true love, and so many things fell in place when I married him. We merged our social lives together culminating with an unforgettable, fantastically fun wedding. Embracing the new reality of nurturing friendships in coupledom, we discovered as most people do, it's all the more challenging to "click" with 4 personalities (much less the 2 of "each other":)


Now in my 40s with yet 2 more growing little personalities in the mix, the complexities of a social life are exacerbated by even less time to make those friendships that grasp the paradox of feeling simultaneously at ease and challenged to grow. Somehow, it's more simple this way. With so little time, I've gotten very adept at sniffing out the bad fruit. I don't make room for negative energy, dead weight, or people with issues beyond my limits. And the most important friendship I have finally is the one with Myself. After 4+ decades of voyaging through the social web of relationships with all its eccentricites & "ego-centricities," at last I get it.

Resolution.

Resolution on the school choice next year -- finally. Yesterday we sent out our letter to Catlin Gabel declining our acceptance, and this is a week after we signed the contract for Buckman, after finally getting in. We're at peace with the choice, though certainly not without some nagging thoughts should we let our minds wander to the "what if." And in some ways, it almost felt like the Universe was guiding us away from the elite school on the hill. I had received a call from their admissions director wondering why we hadn't come to the Kindergarten orientation or the other end-of-year celebration. I picked up the call, off-guard, on my cell-phone during a grocery run with both girls in tow -- all things which are a rare occurrence (me out with both girls at the store, my cell phone ringing an unknown number - and me actually picking it up), so I was not able to hide my shock & disappointment that we weren't notified of the events. Surely it was a fluky oversight, but one which was such a profound bummer, since the whole reason we put the deposit down was precisely so we *could* go to such events and see how it "fit."

And then today, I get a call from a Catlin mom who says her emails to me (informing me of play dates and other community events) have not gone through, being rejected by my spam filter -- only my spam filter is empty of any emails from her. So, at this point I am taking it as a sign that somehow there is an anti-Catlin Gabel vortex surrounding us, not by our choice, mind you. And it's somehow strong enough to keep us from ultimately making that connection, perhaps just for now. So who knows what the future of our educational journey will hold, but for now we have resolved to say yes to Buckman Arts and we will do everything we can to make it a deep, rich, happy experience for C.

Quiet.

Quiet has been calling to me all week. I am up to my ears in whiny, shrieking little girls (whom I love with all my heart, I must add ;-) And this weekend we head up to Seattle for N's high school reunion. The best part is that Uncle P & Auntie R are excited to take the girls for a two-night overnight - yay! Everyone is a winner here: C & M can't wait to have a big-kid overnight in a house with dogs, cats, and doting relatives. N & I get to stay in a swanky downtown hotel - and best part is that I get a night alone while N goes out with his high school friends on Friday.

Dinner alone with a new book or a light chick-flick movie. Snuggled in luxurious sheets maybe after a hot bath. Peace. No whines, no "she hit me, mommy" in raised, high-pitched voices. Just me. A brief but welcome escape. Peace & Quiet.