We Have People

One of the hardest thing to do as an adult is to meet new friends.  Add in two careers and limited free time, and it gets even harder.  It’s so different from any other stage in your life.  It’s not like high school where you spend hours every day with a group of people your age and make friends quickly.  Or like college where you are thrown into a group of strangers where your friends are the link to your social life.  There’s no need to join clubs to build your resume.  You don’t need to meet the right person to get you into the exclusive frat party or invited to a birthday party.  You’re just on your own.

When Joe and I moved to the Poconos in 2002, we were fresh college graduates, adapting to working for a living and leaving our college days behind.  We made friends through our jobs, but not the friends that we hung out with outside of our 40 hour work week.  There are some GREAT work friends, don’t get me wrong.  I have some great friends that I’ve worked with, but we don’t know each other’s spouses and hang out on the weekends.

It wasn’t until Kevin came that we started meeting a new group of people: other parents.  Sure, it’s easy to compare and criticize other parents.  So you have to go into these relationships with an open mind.  But now, with our 3 ½ year old, we’ve figured out who are friends are.

When Hurricane Sandy hit, it was those friends who we were texting with to make sure our families were all ok.  It was those families that offered their homes to those of us without power.  And I don’t think I even realized it then that we’d built this group of people here.

But on Saturday afternoon, as we got ready for our town’s belated Trick or Treat, I looked around my house, which was filled with five families (nine kids), who had all come over to our neighborhood, that I realized “We Have People.”

When your family is not local, and you have children, you build this little network, a group of families who are in the same situation as you, and you build your own little family. Our kids will grow up together.  The dads will watch football together.  The mom’s will compare notes, brag about our kids, complain about our husbands, and plan our kid’s birthday parties together.

Without even realizing it was happening, we did this.  We have “PEOPLE.”  More and more, this place is feeling like our home.