I'll be there for you...

Universal friendships...

I guess that it happens to us all. We grow up. We move away and start our own lives. Gone are the days when you literally lived in each others pockets. The times that you couldn’t make any kind of decision without a group consultation, no matter how much this annoyed people around you. The age when all that mattered was who was your best friend that week....

For girls this starts at school. You find a best friend and assume that it will stay that way for ever. There will be no change.

You agree with one another that you will never fall out. You can see no reason to. You agree with everything the other one says. You think as one. You are essentially one view point in two bodies.

Then you fall out. Probably something minor. Something which is so trivial that you won’t even remember what it is years later. Unless of course you have reason to hold an epic grudge. And seriously if you are that bitter after a lengthy passage of time then you really should get counselling...or start a blog...

I think a lot of the problem is that you just simply grow apart. You don’t mean to, you just do. You meet other people. Maybe get a boyfriend. You start a new hobby. Then all of a sudden you haven’t spoken to your bezzie in a while...longer than you can remember.

Undoubtedly you try to correct the situation. You call them up. You have a general chit chat. But something has been lost. Its just not the same. They don’t have as much in common with you as your new friends do.

Of course some things are certain to bring a premature end to a friendship without the need for the drifting apart phase. There are certain ‘rules’ which must be adhered to.

A big no no is making moves on a friends boyfriend/love interest/crush. This will not go down well. They will not want to stay being your friend.

Jealousy over new friendships is another casulaty claiming pifall. Sometimes you cannot make all the groups of yuor life bond like one big happy family.

There is also the problem of living with your friends. This happens in my experience mainly at uni.

Its true that you never really know people until you live with them. Then all their bad habbits seem to come to the forefront with the pure intention of annoying the hell out of you. Its just one of those things.

Before you know it your hiding their food and playing music at top volume the night before they have an important exam... you know the kind of thing...

You thought you knew them so well and then it appears that you didn’t. How did that happen?  I think its like this;

You get to know people fairly intensely at uni in a short space of time. The first year is designed for this. They put you in halls. You make friends with your new room mates. You all go to Freshers week. You get very drunk. You meet other new students and drunkenly strike up ‘life long’ friendships. You go to lectures. You sit by people you don’t know and bang they are your new best friend. Maybe you join a club. You meet people there. You love them instantly.

Its all about the here and now at uni. You want the whole package and making lifelong friends is an important part of that parcel.

The problem is that a lot of the time you don’t really know the people. You think that you do. You may know them at that moment in time ... but time never stands still for long.

As you graduate, you try to hold onto the once invincible ties that bound you so closely together but they invariably fray and snap over time.

Its harsh but true.

Before you know it you haven’t seen your BFFs for years. You might catch sight of their news on facebook once in a while. Even have a brief wall to wall catch up. But the truth is its over. It was probably just not meant to be.  Youre too old now to relive the glory days of all night partying and hangover hazed lectures.

The odd thing is that there are some people who you just never hear about again. You might search for them like a deranged hunter seeking prey. They just don’t seem to exist anywhere anymore (at least not social network wise). Where do they go?

Uni is all about ‘finding’ yourself and people change. Not intentionally. They just grow (I'm not saying they grow up because sometimes they seem to regress...its still however growth of some kind!) Their interests and priorities change and so do yours. And that's normal. Its certainly no bad thing (definately in my case at least).

I still keep in contact with some of my old uni friends. I enjoy their news. I wish I saw them more often. We always say we should meet up. We rarely do. That's just the way it is i guess.  

The beginning...

These are my thoughts. A random collection of thoughts. They usually cover things which happen in my everyday life. That can of course be national events, things which make international news, things which make the local rag. It can equally be as mundane as things which happen to me in the supermarket...or on the car journey there.

Largely I’m writing these things down for my own sanity. Its been highly therapeutic. The reason I’ve needed an outlet is because there was a major change in my life. I had  baby. There really is no bigger change.

Whilst this has undoubtedly been the happiest chapter in my life so far, it has taken some adjusting.

Before the baby I worked none stop. My career was my life. I lived to work. That was all. Children had never been a factor in my life. They were not something I could see on my horizon.

I imagined that I would carry on working. Try to make partner. Muse about the short comings of the world and generally carry on as I had been for the preceding years.

Fate had another plan for me. Fate decided I was due a change.

This change has affected everything. From my financial situation to my ability to handle my ‘rage’. It also altered my ability to express myself. I realise now that this was because when I was at work I could always hide any issues I had behind those of my clients.

This isn’t about work however. It’s about what happens when you shift from being a professional woman to a mother. Its about the changes you don’t think are there but they happen anyway. Its also about my thoughts. As I have explained this is my therapy, its my release. This is all the things that I want to say out loud but cant.

I hope its funny. I hope its informative. It is only my opinion. This comes largely from my observations of life. I do not intend to be judgemental. I do not have a particular political or religious persuasion. I do not favour one ethnic group over another. I try to take all  people as I find them and assess them all by the same criteria. I hope not to come across as prejudice in anyway. If you think that I do then I apologise it is not my intention. These are just my thoughts.

I’ve found it easier to touch on things that have happened to me. In particular things which have annoyed or impressed me. This means that I have had to change the names and details of the people involved. I hope that they are not identifiable. It is not my intention to ‘name and shame’ nor is it my intention to heap praise onto anyone.

Of course it will undoubtedly be the case that I will mention those closest to me, my family and friends. I love them all dearly and mean all that I say about them in the nicest way.  They really are the best people I could ever hope to know. That is why they are part of my life.

I will at times also touch on work. It was such a large part of my life. It was my life for the past 6 years. It is all I really have for reference. I can’t avoid the topic entirely. Its not however what I hope to focus on. Some parts do feature it heavily. Others not at all. That's fine by me. You can always of course skip those bits if you want!

I'm not going to discuss specific cases in any detail. I'm not going to mention any of my clients. Any reference to work will be in a generalised sense. This is not about work.

Finally I want to make it clear that no one else knows that I am writing this stuff down. They haven’t had any direct input. All of these views are essentially my own. Of course I have listened to their views in various topics before formulating my own opinion.

This however is all mine. My conscious stream of thought. Welcome to my mind!