circle of friends

After dropping off the twins at pre-school this morning, I was on my way to meet a bunch of women for breakfast. While driving there, I started thinking. Funny how I do so much of my deepest thinking while driving.

I was thinking how life brings us a multitude of circles of friends and how we navigate from one to the other, how we adapt ourselves to one or the other, how these circles can grow over time of even just diminish and dissapear, how these circles sometimes tangentially touch or intersect all together.

Of course we all have a few circles of friends. In my case, my professional friends, those I went to school with. The people I worked with over the years. Neighbourhood friends. Parents of kids's friends. There are 3 particular circles of interest for me today.

There is this circle of friends I was about to go meet. Mostly moms I met at our church's playgroup. We all had young kids of the same age. A major difference being that a lot of these moms are a whole decade and up to two younger than me. There are times when talking about a TV show or a song or an event they'll look at me blankly and I'll then realize, hmmm, they weren't even born yet. As much as I love them all and they are warm human beings, they are basically girly-girls. And I've never felt very comfortable around girly-girls. Never pretty enough. Never stylish enough. Too clumsy, too intellectual. These women are into what each other is wearing, what kind of vehicle they are driving, what their houses and posessions within are like, what designer clothes their kids are wearing, etc. I find myself frantically agonizing over what to wear before meeting them as its all about the looks. And lets face it, I'm older so I've got to work at ir a little more. Plus the conversations after having talked about kids stuff, revolves around issues that I can deal with for just so long: make-up, clothes, furniture, a new store that just opened, recipes. I dare not bring up the latest book I just read for fear none will know what I'm talking about. They are more the "People" and "Us" crowds. So I adapt and its fun for a while to be in the midst of girly-girls.

Then there is this other circle of friends that I met on the internet, of all places. They are dearer to my heart. I came to relize that these people met me first on a whole different level. They met my thoughts, my mind, my feelings, my intellect first. The body encasing this psyche came afterwards. They met the real me first. The naked me. And with them, I have this whole feeling of comfort that is very particular. Whereas with that other circle of friends, it was the physical look that came first, many have no clue what goes on my intellectual level.

Tonight I am meeting another circle of friends. Moms I met when big sis was herself at pre-school. We've kept in touch. We usually do one major outing a year, a pampering kind of thing. Last year we went to this place for a group pedicure with wine and cheese and then had supper at an off-beat totally not kid-friendly place. Tonight we are going here, sounds so decadent, and then off to a quaint bistro kind of place for supper. These women are neat as we can talk about just anything that comes up and there are no false pretenses. Heck, we've seen each other in bathing suits and no make-up and no fancy hairdo and all. These are the women who came through and helped me after having the twins. They saw me in my worst physical and emotional state ever. I am forever grateful to them.

But these circles of friends is what ultimately sustains us.