Community: Friendship

Is it more important live where one is "from" or to leave.  I am using "from" as the place most like home, since so many people have grown up in multiple places and may not really identify with one's birthplace.  I was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, but is this where I am "from?"  When I was five my parents moved to the US after living in different parts of Asia and England.  Most of the life I remember took place living at a lakefront house in West Milford, NJ.

I spent many summers swimming in the lake and many winters ice skating.  People who grew up with me probably remember my beach birthday parties.  My closest friends now are still the friends I met in elementary school and early junior high.  Even after moving to Washington state and spending my college years here, I still feel like I will be spending the rest of my life searching for local friends that understand me the way my childhood friends do.

Why is it considered cool to get as far away from one's hometown as possible?  Are adventures to foreign lands the only things people want to talk about these days?  Is it relevant to think that many the best things in life are right in front of us and we are missing them by wishing we were somewhere else?  I was the kid that was a world traveler from a young age so maybe that has left me feeling like I am not missing out in that department.  It is important to understand other kinds of people and different placing in the world.  I still sit around dreaming of a way to bring all my kids to Europe and wish we could make a trip to Bangladesh.  However, I do feel like these are the things that are temporary and real life is actually more interesting than one might think.

A couple of my childhood friends and I talk once or twice a week.  Sure they are listening to my kids scream in the background and 90 percent of the time I am folding laundry or preparing food for my family, but it does not matter.  Years of history means that we can chat about anything and it is entertaining.  I talk to people miles away, more often than people I run into at the store in town.  When my phone rings it is either my husband or one of the Rs.  My friend C and I have called each other every Christmas morning from the third grade on. 

Now here I am, living in Port Townsend for just over five years and I still feel like the new kid a lot of the time.  Friendships are just in the early stages.  If one where to put in grade school terms, we have not even made it to junior high.  It takes so much time to cultivate friendships as a transplant.

Being a mom also makes cultivating friendships more challenging.  There are parent politics...kids don't get along, other parents do not approve of your parenting styles.  Things get mixed up in the jumble of it all.  I sometimes wish people could get to know me as me instead of Joel, Ellianna, Dominic, Charis, and Bria's mom.  Instead of knowing that I am the kind of parent who is not afraid to tell my children, "no," I wish people knew that I love to give to others.  I love hosting people and I love making gifts.  I like spending time walking, running, and writing of course.  Behind my children there is still a person.  This is not meant to be pointed, I just feel like even I forget this sometimes.