Making New Friends
It’s been a while since I’ve dropped down into new surroundings with a need and desire to make new connections.
Sent off to Girl Scout Camp as a child or to College as a young adult required establishing immediate bonds to navigate camp chores or to find the library and dining halls. Also, shared space in tents, cabins, and dorm rooms creates intimacy no matter whom one might choose without assignment. Might as well get along or get out.
Having relocated more than an hour from the Upper Valley area of New Hampshire — my most recent home for the last 15 years — it’s impractical to believe I’ll see any of my old gang as regularly as I might hope. Everything about my day to day and week to week schedule has changed, and I’m changing too.
My husband and I are having our second social event as a couple (a family picnic last June was a very different animal). It’s not a big party and we’ll number no more than ten if all accept our invitation. But it’s a “coming” out of sorts. With two divorces between us, both Roger and I are guilty of having lurked in the shadows for a couple of years. When you feel you’ve failed at something, it’s hard to rally and be out and about making happy with the masses.
Now we have our new shared happiness, and want to join in again. So we’re stepping beyond the comfort zone and inviting others in to share a meal and some laughs. We don’t have any hidden agenda, just a desire to be reconnected with the world and feel safe and accepted beyond our togetherness.
Wish us luck!
27 Oct 2006 andrea 0 comments
