Thursday, January 24

Friendship reflection

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Friendships are something that I spend a lot of time thinking about. Especially as I age. Friendships can be fickle if you don't make the right ones. However if you do manage to sow the right friendships seeds they can bring a life of love and happiness. As MultipleMum over at And then there were four points out we need the connection that friendship brings to help keep loneliness and isolation at bay.

For me friends are something that I have always felt like I struggled with. Even in primary school I can recall this awful feeling of just not fitting in. I wasn't overly different to everyone else, I just never felt like I had a secure circle anywhere. It was like people were always happy to spend time with till something better came along.

When I went to high school I purposely choose a school that I knew not many of the kids from my school would be at. I wanted a fresh start and a clean slate. I saw it as an opportunity to leave the struggles of the previous years behind me and create a whole new me. One that was cool and had a tight group of girls that would always have my back. The boys also thought I was a bit of alright and I would be the one that everyone would want to hang with.

Not surprisingly that is not exactly how things turned out.

Apparently being cool in the eyes of your peers as you are growing up is something you are born with. You have either got it or you don't. Much to my disappointment I realised quickly in my high school years that I was in the don't got it camp. It didn't take to long for me to realise that maybe I wasn't missing out on as much as what I thought.

Of course that is not to say I didn't manage to make some wonderful friends, because I did. And for most of the five years that I was in high school I was never overwhelmed with loneliness or isolation, but there certainly times when I questioned my place in amongst it all and there were many a time when I had the nobody likes me song going round in my head.

My first year of uni saw me out of home and living with my bestie. It was great, it was one of the first times that I started to feel a real sense of belonging. I loved it. I had wonderful boyfriend, a fantastic flatmate and a job at the coolest shop in town.

Life was great.

We lived in an inner city flat and were stumbling distance from the nightlife that is being a uni student. We partied, we studied, we were footloose and fancy free and the world was our oyster. It really did feel like a dream come true kind of life.

Looking back now I can't even remember what it was that made her move out, but move out she did and we practically never spoke again. She left town and I never heard from her again. It was all before the Internet and things. In fact, back then we didn't even have *gasp* mobile phones.

Do you know how old I feel right now?

Of course now that there is the Internet we are Facebook friends but it has only been within the last eighteen months and it was with great trepidation that I sent the request through. We messaged each other a few times but nothing more than super short updates. Which is pretty much the extent of all my interaction with those I went to high school with.

Just after few short months after my twenty first birthday I dumped my high school boyfriend and decided to move onto bigger and better things. The next few years blurred together and I suddenly experienced a whirlwind of incredibly intense romantic relationships, which would eventually leave me a single mother to a wonderful little girl.

So not what the magic ball had said when I asked as a teenager. But I digress.

This post was originally meant to be about all the beautiful friends that I have been blessed with. Especially of late. The last twelve months have really shown to me that I do have a place in this crazy old world. I still may not know exactly where that place is but I know there most definitely is one. What I do know though is it is a place that I am thankful to share with some wonderful people, both in real life and on Internet, thanks to this lovely little old blog of mine.

With that in mind I just wanted to say.

To all who left such lovely comments on Tuesday's post I am thankful.
Thankful that you stopped by and more so that you took the time to comment and show you care.

To all the lovely people who call me their friend I thank you also, I know that sometimes I may be slightly (or a lot sometimes) self occupied and don't seem to care, but trust me, when you need it most, I'll be there.

Fairy wishes and butterfly kisses to one and all

6 comments:

  1. great post, I'm awkward I always feel like Im a nuisance, and its not that my friends treat me that way cos they dont.. I it on being the middle child!

    http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/15912/1/Middle-Child-Syndrome.html

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    1. Lol about the middle child. I don't have that excuse as I am the eldest.

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  2. I wish I had known you in high school :) I found it a hard place to be even though I had a group of friends majority of the way through - a couple I am still in contact with.

    I have found true friendships in my adult life. Only a couple, but they are true, and I cherish them every day. Honestly I have no idea how people have a huge group of friends, I find it hard to give the ones I have the time I should! lol

    Blogging has given me the chance to share myself like I can't in real life. I've made some friendships that I never would have, and they all know "me", the real me some in real life some wouldn't have a clue exists.

    True friendship may only mean having that one true friend. I'd prefer the few true friends I have rather than lots that I feel I can't be me around.

    xxx

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    1. I wish I had known you then as well lovely. Blogging is amazing, though there have still been times when people haven't quite got what I meant or intended but that is just life. Some people will never see things the way intended.

      I totally agree that one true friend is a thousand times better than a big group of pretend ones.

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  3. Alicia@ Alicias moments of gratitude25 January 2013 at 12:44

    Just read this nodding my head, I felt so awkward in high school, found it hard to fit in to any one group, and worried about showing people my true self.
    We become adults and realize that some parts of being a teenager never really leave us.
    I am happy to have a wonderful group of friends now who "get me", and feel blessed to have met you, you are a really lovely person x
    Have a lovely weekend

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  4. Rhianna, at school, I always had this feeling too that I was not fitting in (and I was bullied). Then, when I got to high school, I took the same decisions as yours which was doing a fresh start in a school where I didn't know anyone. But, I was lucky to find amazing girls there with who I'm still friend with. Today, I was talking to one of them and she was telling me that she stoped talking with another friend of ours. Sometimes life just drive us apart and this is just the way it is. We change and I guess the people around us too. But thank God for blogging!

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Fairy wishes and butterfly kisses to you, thanks for stopping by, it really means a lot, you taking the time so say hi. I try as much as I can to write a reply but if for some chance I don't get to it please know that I always read them.