A Secret Hiding Place

Kids love secret hiding places--forts, treehouses, clubhouses. My kids love to build forts out of blankets and hide away in their Star Wars tents for hours. My friend Pam and I have a fantasy of a hide away of our own. We talk about it all the time--nothing fancy, of course. We dream about a place where we can just get away to every once in a while, perhaps a studio apartment. This amazing place would be girly and stylish. It would be free of toys and other small debris that make you scream in the night when their sharp edges jab into your bare feet. It would be a place where the freezer was always stocked with the ice cream and Lean Cuisines WE like and where it is perfectly acceptable to watch Lifetime movies without criticism. There would be no apple juice in the fridge or raisins between the sofa cushions.

Most importantly, this place has two beds. They are soft, comfy beds...and no one steals the covers. And speaking of these beds, while in them, no one wakes us up at the crack of dawn requesting a cup of milk or to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. This place is the girls' hideaway that we half joke about sharing one day. It's a place where we can go for a night--together or alone--to just get from it all and come back to our families recharged and refreshed. No laundry. No dishes to clean. No bottoms to wipe.

I love my family more than anything on this planet, but sometimes it's nice to just get a little peace and quiet and remember who I was before I possessed "working boobs." Sometimes, it's nice to imagine a place like the apartment I had before I got married. Pam and I lived on the same street when we lived in our single gal apartments, and I sometimes think we are dreaming of very similar hideaways when we discuss our grand plans. It would be a place where we can just zen out and ponder all of the day-to-day little things and life-altering big things that we all allow to fly around in our brains but never have enough time to contemplate.

Let's be real. I would never do it. We would never do it. Financially, it's crazy and well, the idea of being able to get away for a night more than once every four years is completely unrealistic. My family needs me too much and I need them too--plus I would feel way too guilty leaving them for my own needs. Pam and I will, however, continue dreaming and talking about our little piece of paradise for years to come--over giant dinners at Lucille's and delicious desserts at Yogurtland.

And even greater than our daydreams about our hideaway is my friendship with Pam because it provides me with a getaway in and of itself. We came together through college, our sorority, and living on the same street...and several other ways as well proving that we were always bound to be friends. I know that I can make it though the ups, downs, good, and bad of motherhood because we are doing it together. I know that she is just an email, texts, or phone call away when I need her and more often than not my conversations with her--long or short--are all I need to recharge and refresh.

I love my friend Pam and you will too. Stop by her blog, Mom is a Four-Letter Word.

Friendship Values

Years ago I experienced a painful "break up" with a friend.  If you haven't experienced it, you're lucky.  A break up with a friend can be just as upsetting and unsettling as a break up with a boyfriend or signficant other.  The thing about friend break ups, is that they aren't always as clear cut and easy to figure out.  When I experienced my break up, I was pretty bummed and dumbfounded.    We had been friends for years, closer than close, and did everything together.  When we lived together, it wasn't uncommon for us to get mail addressed to the two of us as if we were a couple.

About nine years ago, this friend cut me off cold turkey.  I was devastated.  After a number of phone calls went unanswered, I sent her a marathon email apologizing for anything I could have possibly done to upset her.  I never got a response.  I just couldn't understand how someone I had been so close to couldn't take the time to even respond to me to let me know what I had done and why our relationship was over. 

A friend who knows both of us was very helpful in assisting me to get over the end of this important relationship.  She comforted me by telling me that perhaps our friendship values were just different.  I was intrigued by this concept.  She went on to say that maybe for my former friend, her expectations of friendship and what she needed out of a friend were different than mine.  Some people only want friends who will tell them what they want them to hear and others don't.  Some people need friends who are around 24-7 and others see great value in their friends, even if they only speak to them or see them a couple of times per year.  She went on to explain that people need and expect different support and interactions from their friends.  She suspected that our mutual friend perhaps didn't internalize friendships as deeply as I did and perhaps needed something I couldn't provide her.

I'm so grateful for this life lesson.  Up until that point, it had never dawned on me that everyone I knew didn't have the same wants and needs when it came to friendships.  As for me, I grew up without a sister and always had lots of friends who as coincidence would have it, moved away.  For me, when I have a friend, I am very excepting of the time apart and thankful for the time together.  I appreciate my friends' honesty, supportive criticism, and encouragement--no matter the dosage.  I have learned that I might not agree with everything my friends say or do, but they are still my friends and I accept them for who they are.  Perhaps even more importantly, I have learned that when a friendship's negative or nonbeneficial interactions and attributes out weight the positive, it's time to terminate the relationship, and that's ok.  All friendships are not meant to last forever.  Some are meant to benefit us for a short amount of time and some friendships are relationships that we will engage in at only certain times in our lives.

Taking a close look at my friendship values has been one of my most important life lessons.  When you have some free time (stop laughing--I know that's rare!), think about your own friendship values.  More importantly, think about how your friendship values match up to the friendship values of those in your life.  If you are reading this, you are probably one of my friends and I am very, very thankful to have you in my laugh.

The Christmas Card List

Every year I pull up my Christmas card list from the deep recesses of my computer. Every year I am forced to face the same question. At what point can I take someone off the list? There's a few usual suspects I consider removing every year, yet keep them on out of some sort of strange feeling of guilt or desire to show off my kids' smiling mugs.

First, there's the people I don't know. I now that this seems like a no-brainer, but hear me out on this one. There's a couple my in-laws asked us to invite to our wedding and later asked us to send a birth announcement to when our youngest son was born. Apparently, my father-in-law served with the husband in the Air Force and the families were at one time close. After our first child was born, this couple started sending us Christmas cards every year. I'm not just talking a simple, "Merry Christmas, From the X Family." I'm talking a card with the "family letter" plus an additional (long) personal letter. My in-laws no longer keep in touch with this family, but given the effort that this family puts in to keeping in touch with us, I feel obligated to return the favor.

Second, there's the Christmas celebrators who never send a card back. (I'm not counting my nonChristmas-celebrating friends, as I do not expect a card from them and now they like getting our card each year because I hear from them otherwise--phone, email, etc.) I have a few friends who I like keeping in contact with who just "don't send cards" because it's not their "thing." In the past, I have felt like although these friends of mine don't reciprocate the card I want to stay in contact with them, there comes a point when the cute "quirk" is kind of annoying. I mean, do these friends really want me to keep in contact with them if they year after year don't send a card? I have a feeling that they really just don't care about the whole Christmas card thing--giving or getting.

Finally, there's the friends I send to (and send back to me) that I have virtually no relationship with anymore--except for the Christmas card exchange, of course. I have a feeling that I send cards to these folks just to show off my kids, how much weight I've lost, how pregnant I am, etc. A waste, right? If I don't like having these people in my life, why do I send them cards.

So this year, I think I'm going to clean house in my Christmas card list--maybe add some new folks and delete some old...update the folks who have moved and the ones who have divorced. What's up with your holiday card list this year?