Not my daughter. Me.

Making friends as an adult can be very difficult.

I am very lucky to have a small group of girlfriends that I have been close with since childhood. We have taken different paths through the years, but managed to all remain incredible friends. They are reliable, supportive, and hysterical. Not much is better than having people that know you nearly as well as you know yourself. Of course, this can cause discomfort, especially when they help you to see the things you don’t want to look at: the things that you might need to work on. But Amen to that kind of honesty.

Through the years, like most people, I have met other women that I have grown close to. We have met at various stages in our lives: wild early twenties, late-bloomer-adult-student late twenties, new-mom thirties.

And I appreciate having met them all — a wonderful support network as I have gotten older. But sometimes adult friendships are not easy. Not necessarily easy to form or to maintain. Finding people that I have things in common with, that I can trust, and that I can make time for gets increasingly harder as I get older. And outgrowing and letting go of some of those relationships can be a little sad sometimes. But sometimes it can be freeing.

I have also met women that the moment I talk to them think, “I want to be their friend!” Like, I immediately get friend-crushes! I struggle with confidence, thinking that they wouldn’t like me: I’m not pretty enough, cool enough, or I’m just too weird or something.

For some reason, I always thought that this kind of stuff would be a walk in the park as I got older. In some ways, I guess it gets a little less difficult though. I have an easier time being honest, about being forward. Life experiences have shaped me. Time has become more precious. Sweeping my side of the street has become more important. So although friendships are still complicated and reaching out and making new friends doesn’t always happen without some work, well, some things have changed. I do have the benefit of realizing how precious time is and the awareness that I can control where I place my energy. And in the end, this makes for better relationships.