The Ebb and Flow of Friendships

Today’s 44 was a move fairly new move for me – the Sprawl!!! Start by making yourself a ball, then sprawl out (a big X) with your arms and legs slightly off the ground. Curl back in before repeating.

Clearly not the best place for pictures since my hand is hitting the stair rail – I was just trying to get the pictures done before Chris left for work!!

A few of these and you will really feel it in your core!!

And, for Garage boot camp, I finally put together a new workout!!! Today we did Count Down Boot Camp – not gonna lie, this was a challenge in a great way! Isn’t that what boot camp is all about?!

Friends come in all forms – work friends, social friends, fun friends, best friends and those friends that are closer than family!

As I look back at different points in my life, I can see times when I relied more heavily on certain types of friendships over others.

As new mom, I needed social friends more than anything. I was fortunate to be able to stay home with my boys when they were little but it was hard. There were times when Chris was deployed on or another trip and it was lonely!!! Thankfully I had a group of friends who were also raising young kids and we could plan outings together or escape for a couple of hours without kids in the evenings. During those years, this group of friends was essential.

As our kids got older, we all sort of moved on to other things. I eventually went back to work and spent a lot of time with my work friends. I was very fortunate to work with a great group of people in the office at my boys’ elementary school – we enjoyed spending time together for work and outside of work, too.

I have also been fortunate to have had the kind of friendship that is closer than family because it is 100% choice! In my mind this was a friendship that would never end and we would watch not just each other’s kids grow up but also grandkids.

For years our families spent all of the major holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, 4th of July, birthdays….) together.

And then one day things changed. (I’m still not sure why or what happened.) There have been many times over the past year that I have grieved over the loss of this friendship in the same way you grieve over the loss of a loved one.

Over the past year I’ve realized that the number of friends we have isn’t really what matters (most fall into the acquaintance category truthfully!) – it is the quality of the friendships that is what counts!

Some nights I lose sleep over lost friendships – it is hard to completely let go sometimes. However, I try to just treasure the friendships that I have and let those people know as often as possible how much I truly appreciate them.