Making Friends

Growing up making friends was super easy for me. I was an extremely social butterfly and a true extrovert. I thrived off of friendships and being in the loop with people and today’s trends. As I have gotten older I have slowly transitioned into an introvert. I still have the desire to socialize but I am so clueless on how to socialize. I have been fairly good with keeping to myself and shoving my nose into book after book over the past few years. When I do try to socialize I either share WAY too much information, which scares people off or rubs them the wrong way, or I sit there silently and feel a little awkward because I am not clued in with the popular topics of todays world.

Having children in our care has definitely helped me open up a little bit more, but I still feel I’m a bit socially awkward when trying to have conversations with other parents. I never have a clue what to actually talk about. How much is too much? How much is too little? I’m slowly trying to work on this, so please bare with me. haha

I’m honestly concerned that my social awkward behavior is going to rub off on our girls. I’ve been working with them to continue conversations with people. When someone asks how you are doing, you respond and then return the question to them. This is still a work in progress. Our girls get so excited when they see people they know but never know how to have a real conversation with those people. This reminds me that I need to really work on myself and be a better example for them.

There are plenty of excuses.

I think part of my problem is that I don’t have many hobbies. I have plenty of interests but don’t take action on actually doing anything. I used to play the cello back in the day, and I even ended up purchasing one a couple years ago with hopes that I could start playing again.

I’ve considered growing a garden with the idea this could be fun for our children to learn how things grow and inspire us to all eat healthier.

I’ve considered joining our oldest girls PTL with other parents at her school but the girls visit nights with their birth mom kind of gets in the way of that since the meetings are during the time of visits and when the girls would come back to our home.

Jason’s dartball nights mean I have to be home with the girls.

I wake up so early because I go to bed early so by the time I am done with work I am ready to just crash after making dinner and eating dinner. I have always been like a flower (as my mom would call it); early to bed and early to rise. I do my best thinking in the morning. I have the most energy in the morning and get my cleaning, food prep, laundry, etc. done in the mornings.

Going out with the girls means spending money. When trying to pay down debt spending money isn’t always the easiest thing to do.

Time I do have free I like to spend with Jason and/or as a family. Since the work and school week gets chaotic with trying to squeeze in all the random appointments for us and the girls and scheduling around their two-nights-a-week visits, there isn’t much of a break until the weekends. Often times even weekends fill up fast so come Sunday night I need a weekend from my weekend.

I worry about being judged how we parent our girls. We have been heavily taught and trained how to work with our girls with being in the foster care system. We have a list of dos and don’ts and sometimes we exhaust all the dos and still feel like we we’re not getting anywhere. Then there comes the unsolicited advice, because everyone thinks they know what’s best.

I do have a handful of close friends who I have known for most of my life. I don’t get to see many of them as often as I would like since their schedules are busy, too. A few of us girls do try to plan random girls nights, which is nice. We’re totally past due, though! Then there are the friends who used to be close but have kind of fallen into the acquaintance category. I miss those friends so much.

Honestly, I wrote this post a few days ago and wanted to let it sit there for a little bit before posting it publicly just in case I wanted to reword anything. After writing this post I came across this article from Focus on the Family and it really closely matches to what I’ve been feeling. I’ve been really longing to grow some good Christian friendships. Start a Bible Study group or just have random gatherings together. There’s something special about having a friend or friends who share a faith with you and can give you some good Christian advice for how to handle different situations going on in your life.

I guess this post really has left me with my eyes wide open. I know this is something I need to work on. Get out of my shell and branch out to meet new friends and also reconnect with old friends. If you’re reading this and are longing for the same thing, please reach out. 🙂