Where My Girls At? (said in my best hip-hop voice)

Do you ever feel like all of your close friends are from back in the day, and now the jerks have spread themselves across the country, so you've thrown yourself on the friend dating scene? 


I recently saw one of my college roommates after years of being apart. Granted, we talk on the phone and the computer, but it's not the same.  Just look how happy we are!

When we hugged my eyes filled with tears, because you don't realize how much you NEED to see someone until they are right in front of you.  There is no substitute for a shared history.  

When you're in school, you are totally immersed in the lives of your friends.  In college you're in a 9x12 room with, for all practical purposes, a stranger.  But you hear every phone call, know instantly if they've had a bad day, exchange clothes, fight over Dr. Pepper, share meals, and debrief every nanosecond of your Saturday night.  Death, divorce, eating disorders, crisis of faith, crazy house mates, nasty break-ups, and countless episodes of 90210 later, and you love them like sisters.  


Then everyone makes their own way in the world.  You move.  They move. Then someone gets hitched, and your circle of friends shifts, because it's easier if you can go out as couples.  Add a baby to the mix, and KABLAM--everything changes again.  Relationships take effort, and work, and often times, as parents, we don't have a lot of time for that.  We try to carve out time for ourselves, with book club, MOPS, Bunco, etc., but half the time we end-up skipping the obligation because something with the family comes up.  And if you're working outside the home, it can be difficult to take time away from your family for the girlfriends, when you've already been away all day.  I've been there.


Shauna Niequist says it so well in her first book, Cold Tangerines:
True friendship is a sacred, important thing, and happens when we drop down into that deeper level of who we are, when we cross over into the broken, fragile parts of ourselves.  We have to give something up in order to get friendship like that.  We have to give up our need to be perceived as perfect.  We have to give up our ability to control what people think of us.  We have to overcome the fear that when they see the depths of who we are, they'll leave...If we can control it and manage it and manufacture it, then it's something else, but if it's really love, really friendship, it's a little scary around the edges.

Is it too late for the "scary around the edges" type of friendships we had in college? I am fortunate to have a handful good friends in Grand Rapids, and I am so grateful for them, but that has taken a long time. I know I still walk into situations with the "will you like me" fears.  Although with age, I've also acquired the "will I like you" concern.  Is this why it's so difficult to have close friends, like the ones with the shared history of your past?  Or do we just need to be more patient, and lower our expectations as adults?  Is there a cut off to making these types of friends?  Does it stop after college?  After your 30's?  After kids?  Do tell.