Will you be my friend?

I am so blessed to have such wonderful friends in my life. I love that my friends inspire me to be a better wife and mother. I have a couple of friends from high school and several sorority sisters from college that I'm still very close with. There are a few friend from grad school that I think of often. Thanks to email, facebook, and blogs these people are all able to maintain an active presence in my life. I treasure their encouragement and insight.

Of course I still crave that good old face-to-face friend time. A downfall of being married to someone in the military is that you move often. Daily life is very routine, it's comforting in it's consistency but the people and places that are part of life change often. I've gathered a handful of friends from the various places we've been stationed. I have my friends from Colorado, and my friends from Washington, my friends from South Carolina and Oklahoma. I treasure them so much! The majority of them are fellow army wives but there are a few friends from work or neighborhoods where we've lived. Today I was blessed to talk to several of these friends today. We've recently learned that one of our friends who we were so excited to be reunited with here at Ft. Bragg will be moving away but at the same time other friends will soon be moving here.

At this point I'm a little apprehensive about making new friends here at Ft. Bragg. I feel like I have so much baggage! I met my next door neighbor recently. Right after the moving truck had delivered our stuff she came over to introduce herself and brought us a pumpkin pie. Of course I was still in Durham so I hadn't had a chance to meet her yet. She seemed absolutely charming and has 2 adorable boys the same age as Olivia and Peter. Things were going well until she suggested a playdate and then I froze. Where to begin....We've been through so much, how do I begin to explain...even now I am not sure where to start. I would love to make some friends and have a little time away from from the house for a bit but then I don't want to be dishonest and unauthentic by not discussing what has happened over the last year. I know that by the time we leave Ft. Bragg I will have gathered a few more friends to treasure but I so dislike this process of getting there. It's like dating. You meet so many people before you feel that spark that grabs your attention and inspires you to invest your time really getting to know someone. Our new neighborhood has a monthly Bunko group and I went this past weekend. I had a great time and really enjoyed meeting some of the other women. I also realized it was the first time I'd had a girl's night out since the end of June before Olivia's transplant! It turns out that many of our neighboors have kids exactly the same age as Olivia and Peter. I'll have to ask Dr. Paul about when Olivia is able to be around other people so that maybe she can start to make some friends here too!