These are pics of LBL and his besties. They have known each other for all but a few months of their lives… adorable right? This post is not about them.
This post is about me and their mamas.
I would not have survived my early motherhood without these ladies. The friends that I laugh with, and at. The friends that I can say anything to. I could send a text at 3 am and get a response from someone because at least one other of us was also awake nursing. They wiped my tears with a hug the first time I was (in my mind) too harsh with LBL, and they managed to get my ass on a dance floor until 2 AM laughing and dancing the night away. We have confronted each other with hurt feelings and weathered it. We know most things about each other and our families. Those kind of friends. I have heard (and find myself saying) that it is easy to meet people after you have kids. This is true but what is NOT true is that it is easy to make friends after kids. Lives are busy, parenting styles differ, your children may hate each other, ect.
We met through yoga and chance. It was our similarities that brought us together but I think that it is our differences that deepened the bond. I really do believe that it is so important to a new mother’s sanity to have a few friends that are experiencing the same stuff at the same time. The four of us have very similar ideas about the end result but have different ways of getting there, and it is so awesome to be able to call each other, complain about our current issues and bounce ideas off each other or just blow off steam. To hear different views and debate those views. Or to just talk about what to make for dinner.
In the beginning, we managed to hang out every week sometimes a couple times a week. We took brief breaks if our kids weren’t loving each other but really our hang outs were very consistent until about a year ago. What happened? School, and the births of our second children. All four kidlets are in different schools with different schedules and suddenly our playdates are few and far between and rarely are we all able to make it. This is something that I had a very difficult and emotional time with last fall. I am the mama in the groups that clings to tradition like it is my last meal on earth and have a really hard time with transition. I felt like my support was gone (it wasn’t), I felt like LBL had lost friends (he hadn’t) I was worried that we would drift apart and not be friends anymore. Who knew that you could still feel this after middle school? I felt so sad about what I thought was being lost that I couldn’t see what was just starting to emerge.
Fellow Yogis, don’t you love it when the themes of your many training and classes smacks you in the face? I teach about riding the waves of life rather than fighting them in my classes, I teach about letting go so that new possibilities can start, I teach and love to learn about exactly what I wasn’t practicing.
Friendships like individuals are not stagnant…. if they were, they would be like a rock stuck in the mud of a streambed slowly worn down to nothing.
My relationships with these beautiful women are growing up. We are not just “mama friends” anymore. We managed to build a bond that started with our babies but won’t end with them. And damn, having realized that makes me so happy and relieved.
Ladies, I am so honored to know you. I love each of you and your different ways, and my way being the what it is, I have many, many plans for the future of our friendship.
Love Always, S
P.S. This weekend is going to be EPIC….
Yoga Mama in Minneapolis 