Girls Night Out

So tonight the circle of soul mates, are having a girls night out.

We haven't done this in a really long time. Hopefully we won't have to lie again and say we graduated in 1995.

Anyway, it has been a difficult year for us soul mates as friends. For the first time in say 30 or some odd years we have actually had issues with our friendship.

It is damn hard to realize that after much time you might actually be growing apart.

Most of my friends I have made as adults think it is a little strange, being so close to so many people for so long. There are 9 of us, and we have been friends pretty much our whole lives. There are probably another 15 or so people in the extended circle that have been around almost that long.

We are lucky, indeed. A lot of people I know don't even have one friend from childhood, much less 8 best friends. It speaks to their character, that you could be friends with someone for that long. They do not back-stab, and they are always there when you need them.

So what could possibly start to cause friction between us?

There are 5 women in our little circle. My sister-in-law joined the circle last. She has two kids and two on the way any day now. R, my bestest friend since Kindergarten, doesn't have any kids. Her hubby and her don't really care if they have any. They don't believe in "playing God" and doing invetro and things like that, so if it don't happen naturally, it isn't going to happen.

M has a little girl and a little boy. I puffy heart their family so much. They remind me of how things were when I was little. Mom taking them to CCD. Dad coaching the soccer team. They are a complete nuclear family from way back when, and they love every minute of it.

H has no children, and wants them desperately. I feel so bad for her because even the site of a baby can practically bring her to tears. They've tried all the trying to conceive methods, and so far none of them have worked. This poor woman is like a science experiment and has gone through hell.

Then there is me, single, no kids. Things were so much easier before. I am pretty much free to do anything that I want, and the ones with kids could get Grandma or Daddy to watch the kids while we went out.

As life has gotten more hectic it isn't that easy anymore, and the desire to go out has decreased for those that have kids. They would rather do things involving their kids rather then getting away from them.

I don't have a problem with this, as I love kids. Other people's kids that is. R and H have different feelings on this. They don't have to deal with kids, so they don't want to deal with other people's kids.

So that was causing conflict. Then H started to feel like R must be judging her with all her trying to conceive efforts, which couldn't be further from the truth. When my sis-in-law became accidentally pregnant with twins, that was like the final nail in the coffin for H.

You see, my SIL was pretty distraught over the whole deal. Here she was, 37 with two older children and Whoops! pregnant with twins. We did our monthly Sunday breakfast together a few days after she found out, and she kind of lost it at the table about what the hell was she going to do?

H saw this as quite insensitive since she had been trying for the past 8 or so years to get pregnant and couldn't. She stormed out making my poor SIL feel really, really bad.

I can see H's point, I really can. I have never seen anyone want a child so bad in my life. H is also adopted, and she doesn't want to adopt. I think she just wants someone out there with her DNA that she knows. I dunno....

But to think that my SIL was venting to us about her situation and not caring about H's feelings was a big leap. SIL would never do that. Mix in the wild, uncontrollable hormones of the first trimester, a late in life pregnancy, and the fact that she just got her career off the ground and you are talking about one fucked up person.

So for the first time in our 30+ year relationship we turned into the She said this or she said that type behind your back talking shit. H didn't want anything to do with anyone but me. R understood everyone's situation, but H wouldn't listen because she thought R was judging her for "playing God".

M totally related to SIL, and I was just kind of stuck in the middle of all this crap. The poor husbands got thrown into the mix, when H's hubby took great offense to how upset we were all making his wife.

Then they promptly stopped talking to all of us. SIL and M hung out a lot. R and I were tortured over the little split and just wanted to fix it. H wouldn't return any of our calls or emails.

Until the other day, when an email landed in my inbox with three beautiful words.

I miss you. It also landed in everyone else's inbox.

So we are going out tonight. SIL is on bedrest, so we are going to take carry out over to her house first, have a group dinner around the bed, and then head out for some much needed debauchery.

I don't know if this is "fixed" or not, but it is sure on it's way to being repaired. When you have what we have shared over the years, you cannot throw it away over something like this. Hopefully we'll begin the healing process over some Chinese food, a few shots of tequila, and probably a whole bunch of tears.