Reflecting back on my friendship journey, I think it all started to change specifically when I had my firstborn. Until then the familial roles cast upon me were secondary to being myself. I could be a daughter, a sister, a cousin, an aunt, a niece and a grand-daughter, whilst also being myself. Sure, within those roles were some heavy expectations and pressures, which is why many of us turn to friendships to begin with. Friends love us as we are without much thought for who we become, and without much pressure to be anything or anyone we aren’t.
I had typically intense friendships in my teenage years, followed by juggling those friendships with my work/partner/study as I matured, adding and subtracting a few along the way. What I valued about friendships, was that they were in so many ways, the best parts of other important relationships without the element of pressure. Family loves you unconditionally perhaps, however with that comes certain pressures and expectations meaning you’re not always free to be your true self. Partners love you beyond friendship, but with that comes the pressures of managing finances, physical intimacy and extended or blending families.
Friends are the people who like you just as you are. They choose to spend time with you for enjoyment and support, not because they have to, but because they want to. Friends are often the people who know the most about your truest self, and the ones who have no expectations of who you will become, just enjoying and embracing who you are. They are also the people who remember who you were.
Never has this felt more important than when I had my firstborn. I walked into that hospital as myself, and I walked out as someone’s mother. The identity shift was huge and immediate. A few years later I married and lost not only my name, but also gained another new identity as wife. While I was prepared, as much as anyone could be at 26, for sleepless nights and being dictated to by a small being that appeared to scream at me all day in some language I did not yet understand but was going to need to learn quickly, what I was not prepared for was the complete loss of myself.
I had my daughter at that same hospital less than a year after my wedding. I looked for my identity, thinking I may have left it behind a chair or something, but it felt I had lost even more upon leaving again as a wife and mother of 2!
I was the first of my friend group to start having babies. I was fortunate enough that they were all excited and supportive of me, however they would come and visit, filling me in on the gossip of what was happening in their lives, their careers, their relationships and their social calendar. But all they would ask me about was the baby. To be fair, what else did I have to talk about? Although I had planned on returning to work, I was told when the time came that it wasn’t possible to return part time as I had planned, so didn’t end up returning at all. So that was another aspect of my identity I lost.
My friends would assume I was not interested or available for social outings and I found I dropped off the invite list. Most things were not baby friendly, you see. Again, I probably was too tired to go anyway, but it was just another of the ways that myself was being buried under a mountain of the roles that were now weighing me down.
So what I found quite quickly was that I was isolated. I loved hearing from my friends, but I was boring company for them. They would visit then return to their lives and forget about me, stuck with 2 little ones and nobody to talk to. A few years in, my oldest was diagnosed with special needs. Another role to assume. Advocate. Another piece of myself was squeezed out to make room for this.
I joined mothers group. While it was wonderful to be in a room full of women travelling the same path, at many points it was some sort of unspoken competition about which baby met milestones faster and who was the best at assuming this new identity. All talking babies and how much they loved being new mothers.
Was I the only one struggling? I couldn’t even really identify the problem, just that I felt I used to be a human with merit and value and then suddenly almost without warning I had been erased and replaced with a newer model. People no longer asked me how I was, they asked how the baby was. People no longer asked if I had eaten, but only when the baby was fed. I loved my babies and my husband, so why wasn’t this enough?
Then one day, something small but significant happened. One of the mothers’ group ladies invited me to the movies. WITHOUT the babies. I didn’t know this was still allowed? And we had a cocktail first. And we spoke about how hard we were finding this transition, the strains on our relationships, the expectations of family and society and that we missed our freedom.
At that moment I realised that my friends were my lifeline. They were my connection to myself and I needed to spend more time with them! I became intentional about my friendships. I opened up about my struggles. I joined a playgroup and it got me out of the house once a week, making small talk with women who would, in years to come, become very important friends in my life.
I left the kids at home sometimes to be me, to see my friends and to remember, as much as to remind them that I was still a person with my own wants, needs and worth. That I was still there for them too. That I was still me, and I needed them to help me remember who that is while the rest of the world wanted me to forget. I wasn’t ready to “put my memories of myself in a shoebox on the closet shelf!” Curtis Stigers To Be Loved
Friendships were the answer to my happiness, and without them, even the ones who didn’t make the distance, I wouldn’t be writing this blog today. So thank you to all my friends who saw me through it all, and who keep my foundation of self strong enough that it can hold the weight of all the other roles built upon it, and for helping me patch up cracks along the way instead of pretending we don’t see them crumbling. Your friendship saved me, not just in having you as a friend, but in remembering I could still be one too!
Mothers can’t be the best they can be without first being truly themselves. The cup they pour from must be full in order to nourish their children, and friends are the people with whom we can be fully, selfishly ourselves without guilt. And you can’t put a price on that, although friendships are worth their weight in gold!
❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx
