The Journal of an Honest Mom

Motherhood is weird when it comes to friendships.

Because technically, I have my own little tribe. They all just happen to have the same last name as me.

My husband and my kids are obviously my core people. They’re who I spend my days with. They’re who I talk to, make plans with, eat dinner with, go places with, and just generally do life with.

And I’m fortunate enough—blessed enough—to have family outside of our little family too. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and other family members who I can talk to and spend time with.

Which, when you’re a mom and spend the majority of your day talking to children, adult conversation is adult conversation. 😂

But I’ve been thinking lately about friendship outside of family.

Where exactly do moms find friends?

Better question: where do we find the energy for friends?

Because I don’t remember friendship being this complicated when I was younger.

You went to school. There were a bunch of other kids your age. You sat beside somebody. You talked. You became friends.

Done.

For most of our childhood, we’re almost conditioned to believe that we’re supposed to have a friend or a group of friends around us at all times.

You have your best friend.

Your group.

Your clique.

The people you sit with at lunch.

The people you spend the night with.

The people you talk to every day.

Then you become an adult and, more specifically, a mom, and suddenly making friends feels like an extracurricular activity I forgot to sign up for.

Because when?

My schedule is dictated by little humans.

Nap times. School. Meals. Church. Appointments. My husband’s schedule. Somebody being sick. Somebody needing something. Somebody having somewhere to be.

Even if I meet someone and think, Oh, I like her. We could probably be friends.

Okay.

When? 😂

And then there’s another part of it that I don’t really know how to explain without it sounding worse than I mean it.

Sometimes I’m just not much of a girl’s girl.

Not in the sense that I don’t like women. I do.

It’s more that a lot of the things that seem to interest other women just…don’t interest me.

I don’t care much about shopping.

I don’t want to gossip.

I don’t particularly want to spend an afternoon walking around stores just to walk around stores.

Unless it’s Sam’s.

Sam’s is the exception.

We all know I love Sam’s. 😂

But otherwise, maybe that’s just me. Maybe it’s also the phase of life I’m in.

Because right now, if I get three hours without my kids, there are approximately 47 things I can think of that I need or want to do, and wandering around Target probably isn’t making the top of the list.

Sam’s might.

But that’s different. 😂

And that’s where friendship gets complicated.

Because I do sometimes want friends.

I see women with their little group of friends and think it would be nice to have that.

Someone you can text.

Someone you can grab lunch with.

Someone outside of your family who actually knows what’s going on in your life.

I miss that sometimes.

But then I think about what it takes to actually maintain friendships as an adult.

You have to make plans.

And then somehow get both schedules to cooperate.

You have to text back.

You have to remember to check in.

You have to have enough emotional and mental energy left at the end of the day to invest in another person.

And sometimes…I just don’t.

By the time I’ve given my attention to four kids and my husband and the house and school and meals and whatever else happened that day, there isn’t always much of me left to hand out.

And I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing.

I think it’s just this phase of life.

Maybe that’s what I’ve been trying to figure out.

There’s a difference between something I want and something I need.

I would like to have a close group of friends.

But do I need one?

No.

And maybe that’s the part that feels strange after growing up believing that we’re always supposed to have our group.

Because I already have one.

It’s my husband and my kids.

They’re my people.

And then I’m fortunate enough to have extended family around us too.

That doesn’t mean I never want friendship outside of them.

I do.

Sometimes I really do.

But I also don’t feel the need to force it.

I don’t want a friendship just so I can say I have friends.

I don’t want to manufacture common interests that aren’t there or spend the little bit of free time I have doing things I don’t particularly enjoy simply because that’s what friendship is “supposed” to look like.

Maybe one day I’ll find a woman who wants to sit at my kitchen table while I fold laundry and talk about absolutely nothing important.

Actually, that sounds pretty nice. 😂

But until then, I think I’m okay with admitting that friendship is something I want sometimes without convincing myself it’s something I’m missing.

My circle is small right now.

Very small.

And most days, somebody in that circle is asking me for a snack.

But it’s still a pretty good circle.