Friends

Have I ever said how much I need and love friends?

I have learned in my married life that as much as I love Derek, I need girl friends. Need. Like Desperately.

All of my best friends, save one (love you Sarah), have moved away from Utah. Talk about lonely! But recently, I have become more involved in my ward relief society and I'm starting to make some really good friends. It started with volleyball and that's all it took. These people want to keep doing things with me so they invited me to be a part of their book club (I feel like one of those super insecure kids in high school who gets all excited when the "cool kids" invite her to a party or something:).

But, I love being around girls. I love our conversations and how they can switch from one subject to another so fluidly and yet we can never remember how we got there.

I remember moving around a bit during my childhood and always being worried about making friends. It was so important to have friends as a child, so obviously it was worrisome that I would never make them. I never should have worried because as a child, it was so easy to make friends.

As an adult, I still think it is crucially important for me to have friends. And, I still worry that I won't make any as I move from one apartment complex to another. Unfortunately, it's a little harder to make friends as an adult. It's not like, "Hi, I'm Courtney" and then we proceed to play dolls and by the end of five minutes, we're best friends! It's definitely harder. That is why it was so devastating to have my friends move away.

I've been in this ward for over a year and a half and I'm just now starting to feel apart of this relief society, this woman's society. It feels good! I am learning a lot about myself and I know that the next time I move, I'm not going to be so shy when I get to a new ward (easier said than done, I know). I know that the only way for me to have friends is to just put myself out there. If I had just done volleyball last year, this past year would have been a lot more rewarding!

As an ending note, I just want to say how grateful I am for the church, even if just for the social aspect of it. Anywhere I move, I will have a relief society and I can learn to put myself out there more and make friends easier and quicker than if I moved and didn't have the church. I'm really not sure how regular people do it. How do they meet people? Make friends? I know going to work does a lot of it, but what if you are a stay-at-home mom? How do you do it then? I know they must somehow, but I'm just grateful I don't have to figure that one out. I will always have a relief society that can provide automatic friends, if I'll just let it!