I’ve definitely mentioned that the twentysomethings living upstairs in the flat above us—we barter for childcare—often remind me that like them, when I was a twentysomething I spent a great deal of time with friends. We hung out.
In my case, I spent a great deal of time at the gym with friends, chatting before aerobics or in the weight room, in the locker room or in the parking lot outside. I went running with friends. I went out to dinner with friends. One friend and I strolled every Sunday afternoon, an event we dubbed “walk and talk.” My writing group consisted of four twentysomething women, two with straight hair and two with curly hair, all earning MFA’s in fiction (at different schools). Political organizing brought me great friends working together on projects, including one national project that never would have happened with so much face-to-face time spent together entitled Young Women’s Voices (the upside to now; it’d be on the Internet—as it is, there are probably copies gathering dust here or there). I could go on. But you get it; friends, the lovely boyfriend now hubby included, were it.
Do not get me wrong: without dear, and I mean for dear life, friends I would not be a happy camper or mother or writer or anything-er now. Friends are still it. I have to squeeze time with them in, though, much much differently. It’s with-the-kids time, or the check-in phone call. It’s a stolen treat, like going to the movies on a summer afternoon determined to do so more regularly (Amy, I’m talking to you), but unable to because life is so demanding (and lifey). Or one concentrated annual visit from San Francisco with their lovely children each summer that fuels me for a spell. It’s my ersatz MOTE group—Mothers on the Edge. And frankly, it’s the lovely friendships that have sprung up that take me to all kinds of places but are dear to me now—people who physically live in New Jersey or teach in New York or live in Arizona or Australia or Boston or Brazil or Chicago, and that’s not all. It’s all cherished; it’s all those connections that keep life sweet.
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And that’s why the best part of my nine year-old wanting to run the Safe Passage event this past Sunday was queuing up with pals, his and mine and running a chunk with my friend and her third grader and then running the rest with my buddy-slash-son. He surprised himself by running practically the entire way. Watch out world; I think we want to be running buddies, now.
