Thursday, June 10, 2010

Friendship

I have made, and lost, many friends in my life.  It is the losing part that bothers me.  I wonder why the friendship faded, why we lost touch, what went wrong.  As an only child, friendships have always been very important to me.  As an only child, friendships will probably be very important to Dylan.

I have tried to help Dylan cultivate friendships.  I plan play dates as frequently as I can.  Some of them go well.  Some of them do not.  Years ago, I invited one of the moms in the Mom's Club over with her son and daughter.  My boy, who has never been especially affectionate, spent the majority of the play date doing this...


I was dumbfounded!


  (Later, he tried to impress her by eating his shoe).

Quite a while after that, I had them over to my new house.  That play date did not go as well.  There were a lot of these looks being exchanged...


When her mom told her to say goodbye, she said, "GOOD-BYE!  I'm leaving!", with a great deal of attitude, whipping her hair around in the process.  I'm not sure if he is pouting, or acting indifferent?)

No hugs were exchanged that day.  The other mom and I lost touch, and we didn't see them again until this year, when we passed in the hall at Dylan's preschool.  The two of them didn't even seem to remember each other.

But, I guess that is the way it is with friendship.  People come into our lives, some for years, others for months, some just a day, but each leave an impression.  Each serve a purpose.

Some are in our lives to share a hobby, some to share complaints with, some to lend a listening ear, some to make us laugh.  Some come at a time when we just... need to hug someone.

5 comments:

Burgh Baby said...

Kids are so insanely fickle, too. Alexis has a few friendships just like the one you described-on then off then seemingly forgotten. Every time I think she has completely forgotten the whole thing, she'll randomly ask to play with that kid. WTH? I don't even understand how she remembers!

The Girls' Mommy said...

Those looks! Oh my goodness.

Brooke said...

I was just reading Burgh Baby's comment and Chase is just like that too. He wants certain friends to come play and then complains the entire time they are there, he remembers the most off the wall "friends" and asks if he can see them again! It is so ....RANDOM. That is the best way I can describe it. But, then again, there really isn't a rhyme or reason to anything a 5 year old does.

blue china studio happy said...

I love this post. It is so true about how people seem to come and go in our lives.

I love that look on Dylan's face while sitting in his car. It speaks volumes.

Lisa @ Boondock Ramblings said...

Jonathan is like that. He doesn't have any real set friends, except for one who is almost two years older. Then there is my best friend's little boy but they live an hour from us and we can never seem to get together. I hope he does a better job than I seemed to at making friends. I only recently started up an old high school friendship and have been able to keep it going this time!

Love those photos of Dylan too (Jonathan is a serious hugger right now. I'm working on a post about his random hugging).