The conundrum

Ever since I became a mother, I feel like a gap has been put between my friends and me. Of my friends I consider near and dear to my heart, none of them are parents. Some may be sleep-deprived and stressed out, much like new parents, but their reasons for being so differ. We are in different places, literally and figuratively. In Portland, I am just starting to feel close to these new friends, but most likely I will be gone from here in a year, so I think there is a subconcious act of distancing myself emotionally from them since there will be that physical distance eventually.

My close friends, the ones I made during my SC days, I rarely see them. We don't speak very often, and maybe an email gets written every once in a while. As I said before, we are at different stages in our lives. Some are students; single; partying; staying out/up late. These are things that I don't do anymore. If I can stay up until 11pm that is considered late, especially since I know that I'll have to wake up several times during the night to breastfeed and then get up at 7 or 8am. And if you know me you know that I optimally I like 9 hours of solid sleep (or more), but that hasn't happened in about a year and a half.

I feel alienated, like my friends no longer want to talk to me because I'm a mom and there is nothing in common anymore. And while it's true I am different because of Yoshimi, it doesn't mean that I don't want to connect with my old friends. For a while I felt like I was on the verge of a breakdown, times I'd just scream into my pillow and cry tears of hopelessness. Being a new mom, a supportive wife, plus coping with my father in-law's death, all the while not having any close friends living nearby and no close friends who make the effort to talk to me really adds up.

I understand that my friends probably think that I don't want to talk to them because of our differences now, but that is not the case. I enjoy hearing about my friends' lives. It's nice to simply talk, to connect.

And I do have other mommy friends that I've met through the library Book Baby program, it's not like I know them well enough where I can relate my inner most thoughts to them. Sure, they know what I"m going through, but how often do you open up to near strangers about how you wish you could run away from it all, that you feel alone, that you feel like you're falling apart? These are the things you tell your best friend.

But all is not lost. I recently started taking some happy pills prescribed by my doctor and they seem to be working pretty well. I realized that I can't depend on others for my happiness, and that as cliche as this may sound, I have to find peace from within. I need to take the initiative. If i want to have close friends, I need to put in some effort too. I can't be passive and expect things to happen. This is one of the reasons behind my putting the knitting group together. I'd like to have a nice group of girlfriends I can really connect with. I'm also becoming closer with my fellow mommy friends from the library, so perhaps one day I will feel comfortable enough to confide in them. I can already share my joys and frustrations of mommyhood with them. It's only a matter of time before I will share the joys and frustration of snoopy-hood.

The baby has woken up. Time to feed.