Sunday, March 01, 2009

lessons learned

We are set to meet up with some old friends of mine tonight. I am so excited, and yet, that "high-school angst" still kicks in. When you totally lose touch with someone, your last memories are of how and who they were then, like 11 years ago are what comes to mind. Same with their thoughts on me I suppose. I was not a very "present" person, very emotional, very ME ME ME. Boys were always drama and I made everyone around me feel it. As I prepare to see my friends, who I truly miss and love deeply I do have to remember that their lives did go on without me. They had ups and downs and who knows what else. I kind of feel like I am meeting up in some ways with new friends.

The weirdest part of it all is that I have become "mom", that is my identity now. Sarah cannot even comprehend that I have friends that she doesn't know, or that don't know me as "Sarah's mom". We make our lives, rewrite our scripts and unfortunately we sometimes leave some people behind. In surrounding ourselves with people we care about we create those villages that it takes to raise our kids. In keeping our friendships, making new ones and reigniting old ones we take the time to broaden our identity from more than "mom" or " wife" or "fitness buff". We open up to all the possibilities of who we are and isn't that what we really want to teach our kids?

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