Friendships: My Hope For My Kids

I've been thinking a lot about friends lately.  Not specific friends....but friends in general.

I worry about my kids having friends at school.
I'm jealous of my wife's circle of friends.
I miss some old friends.

I worry about my kids having friends.  
When I look back on my school days, there are two very different versions of me that I remember.
The Clear Lake version of me, while by no means part of the "popular" crowd, had a lot of friends.  Many of those people I kept in touch with over the years after high school...even before Facebook made keeping in touch so much easier.  Now on Facebook, I can keep in touch with lots and lots of friends from Clear Lake...first crushes, little league teammates, second crushes, kids from other grades that I didn't event think knew who I was, third crushes, people from my church, fourth crushes...tons and tons of people I grew up with.  I really enjoy keeping up with everybody.
The Waverly version of me kept in touch with nobody.  Even now on Facebook, I have exactly one friend from the school I attended my junior and senior years of high school.  I spent those two years trying to fade into the back ground.  My introverted way took over with a vengeance those two years, and I did my best to not attract attention to myself.  And I must have done a good job of that.
So when I think of my kids and the friendships they are forming now in school, I really hope they are finding good friends and forming lifelong relationships with good kids....but I guess I can understand from personal experience if they are not.  Sometimes it's easier to just fade into the background.

Spending the last 8 years primarily as a Stay-At-Home parent, it has been easy for me to do that again.  To make my life all about my kids...and to let myself fade into the background.  Perhaps that is why now I am a little jealous of my wife's circle of friends.  Not that I am jealous of the activities they are involved in, but nearly every weekend my wife could be involved in some sort of activity with her friends.  Today for example, she was part of a running relay team that ran from Oshkosh to Green Bay (that's about 55 miles).  This summer she will be part of her 4th Ragnar Relay team.  A couple weeks ago she drove with friends from Wisconsin to Virginia for a running event.  She has options all the time, with a really great group of people.  My group is pretty much my wife, my kids, and my parents.  Which is ok 99% of the time for me....but sometimes I get a little jealous that my wife has so many more people to choose from.

I miss some old friends.  I have a handful of close friends from high school and college...but none lives anywhere near me.  They are scattered from Minnesota to Texas and every state in between.  Sometime I wish they would all just drop what they're doing and come see me.

Friendship is a great thing, but it can also be a hard thing.  My life has provided a very mixed bag of results....I hope my kids are doing okay.