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Thursday 29 November 2012

Friends are the family we choose.



Sometimes I’m a single mum. Sometimes I am a wife and mother. Sometimes I am a student.

I rarely, if ever, go out to party. James and I spend approximately 3 hours a day together with generally one day on the weekend. We don’t really go out to dinner, we are both too tired. I’m not complaining, just explaining.

I feel like a lot of people think that Oliver, James and I just celebrate all the time. The reason I don’t call or visit Melbourne often is because I am too busy having fun. We have fun, but that’s not why I am busy. I am busy because James works long, stupid hours; I am busy because Oliver is the busiest toddler you will ever meet; I am busy because I just finished my degree; I am busy because I have so much going on. Not because I am partying, but because I am a mother, a wife and a person.

I do try, but my priorities have changed. I’d love to say friends come first, but they don’t. Oliver does, he always will.

Over the past week and a bit I have turned off.  I fully engaged with those around me. I kept myself present physically and mentally by disengaging from social media.


I read a study once that said social media allows both or private experiences to become public and our public experiences to become private. How? Well we share our experiences instantly, but in the same breath we disengage from reality to do this. Basically, social media removes us from our present state.
Make your own interpretation of this, but I feel like it’s true in my life style.

Recently I have felt like I have lost a whole lot of touch with the people I love most. Majority of them are 1000km away so that makes it tough. I have a one year old, they have careers; they don’t call, I don’t text. Why? We keep in touch; we read each other’s facebook statuses, they read my blog, I see their instagram. We know what’s going on, but we don’t have the same relationship. We don’t actually talk.
Well we didn’t.
I am probably the guilty party. I over use facebook, I spam photos of Oliver, I am rubbish at replying to texts and recently I’ve given up calling.
But I love my friends. And I knew what was happening right in front of my eyes, and I didn’t want it to happen. So I fixed it.


Friendship is a two way street. It’s so easy to blame others for why you have no friends, but then why are they surrounded by friends whilst you are alone? I’m so very accountable for the slips that have been made recently, I am not letting them slip any further.

I have always been surrounded by friends. It was a mix of a whole lot of luck and a whole lot of hard work. They are always there for me and I try to be too.

In Melbourne last week I reconnected with a lot of these friends. It may have just been for an hour, or even a phone call because we missed each other, but I reached out. And they reached back.

It’s so hard for me to know what I am missing up here without them. We are working hard to get back, that’s the plan. But not the now.

I could also go on about how well Oliver connected with his grandparents and how he needs more of that. We NEED to get back.


I don’t have a best friend. I have THE best friends. I have quite a few friends and I don’t rank them. They are all fantastic for their own reasons, for all the reasons. I love them dearly.

Each of them is doing so well. I love to see it, but its hard to see them excelling with out me. It’s harder to see them falter without me. I’d love to catch them every time they fall.

But I can’t, I’m not there. A phone call is not always enough, but it’s better than a facebook ‘like’ or comment. It’s a start and it’s all I’ve got. It’s better than nothing, and it means a lot to them.

I've got amazing friends in Sydney and Canberra . I am just so damn lucky! I still feel like my lifestyle stops me from being able to be here for them when they fall, even though they are near by. I know I have been, but I feel so temporary here. I feel like I don't want to leave them high and dry, because I will leave. I love them, but Melbourne is home.


So I guess this blog post is me officially turning back on, but not lights blearing. I will take a step back for disengaging and be more present. I feel so refreshed.

I feel like I know who everyone is again; I feel like I know who I am again.

I am so proud of who everyone is, and who they are becoming. I want to be a bigger part of it, and I think I know how to now.

Honestly, I feel wonderful.


I hope everyone’s week has been as refreshing as mine.


Mama J.

3 comments:

  1. Seeing you was the pretty much the high light of my whole year, and next time that happens, whether a call or another coffee date, whether it be 6, 8 months or a year, it'll still remain the high light of my life and a big high for me. (Sounds deranged, but hopefully you get me.)

    I will always reach out and reach back, and I've learnt the hard lessons but nontheless grown the wiser.

    I think you're a delightful human being, a wonderful mum and a dear person to me.

    (End of corny rant.) xx

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  2. An impressive share! I've just forwarded this onto a colleague who was conducting a little research on this. And he actually ordered me breakfast due to the fact that I discovered it for him... lol. So let me reword this.... Thank YOU for the meal!! But yeah, thanx for spending the time to discuss this matter here on your site.
    Feel free to surf my blog diets that work for women

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    Replies
    1. It's fascinating. I started exploring it when I did a piece on cyber bullying in which I began by thinking 'bullying has happened for ever it's no biggy' and I left realising that cyber bullying brings the bully home and into the victims safe place.
      I think it's something everyone should be a little but aware of because our lives are so online these days. I could go on and on about it, like present text and past text. By the time you read even a message so much time may have elapsed and things might be different, arg- we are so detached these days and we don't even realise. Once you take away that face to face communication then you are really detached.

      Thanks for your comment, I'm glad you enjoyed it and your breakfast too! x

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