It’s amazing what not having a child in the hospital can do for your social life. For the nearly two years that we’ve lived here, I’ve been fairly isolated. First by being new and in the middle of house renovations, then by scary personal problems, then by the intensive needs of my little guy. It’s pretty hard to meet someone under the most stressful conditions of your life and seem at all like a sane and fun person to hang out with. Honestly, without the gift of the internet I probably would have made myself a little Wilson by now.
Now I’m starting to settle into the groove of what my little guy requires. Bear even joked the other day that I’m so used to the constant stream of appointments that I don’t even bother to put them on the calendar anymore. And I’m finding the idea of getting out and making friends appealing again, instead of just one more thing to try to squeeze into my day.
On Monday I finally got together with my “new best friends” from church. We’ve known since early on that we’d all get along so great, but along with my own drama of the year, one friend had a daughter graduating and going off to college with all the work that comes with it, and the other friend’s husband was in a major car accident and has been recovering from serious injuries ever since. It was not exactly an opportune time for any of us. But we finally succeeded and it was so restorative to me. We had a great lunch, we passed around my teething fussy baby, we talked all about art and culture. I just got home and wanted to let out a big sigh. It was just what I needed.
The Saturday before that my sister Traci and her kids came into town, and I was just sad we couldn’t see them longer. But how can we compete with Disneyland? It’s not the first time we’ve had to steal a few hours away from the mouse, and it certainly won’t be the last.
But on the Friday before that, I got to see one of my very dearest friends for the first time in six years. 
Jana is one of those friends that you’re lucky to find once in a lifetime. The kind of friend where months (or years) can go by and you can pick right back up where you left off. Where you may not get to talk as much as you like, but they make you feel so secure in your friendship, so truly loved and “gotten” that you feel buoyed up just knowing they exist in the world.
Check out Jana’s death grip on Grant. These boys loved each other.
Jana’s in the middle of a big prolonged move back to Hawaii in preparation for her husband returning from serving in Iraq, so she stayed with me for a day before driving up to visit her brother and shipping her car off before flying to Hawaii, with her three year old son Grant, setting up house and getting her car about a month later.
Oh, and she just finished running her first marathon. Can you believe her? She’s like a cartoon version of the ultimate capable woman. “Oh sure I can be a single parent while my husband is off creating roads and bridges and infrastructure to help the Iraqi’s, and I’ll handle a complicated move on my own while being a crazy great parent to my sweet little Grant. But how am I possibly going to fill in my free time? How about a marathon!”
We’re more “indoor” types of people.
I’ve been so lucky to find the friends I have. The only problem is that they’re all scattered from one end of the country to the other. Jana is particularly gifted at making the distance not seem so far.