Another Josh-call weekend in the books. I still find these incredibly challenging. There were many bright spots in this one, and also some longer stretches that felt rather lonely. I am continuing to work on being present with those feelings instead of catastrophizing them. But sometimes it’s hard.
I did meet some potential new friends at the playground. I need more friends — especially friends with young children. Honestly, it has come to my attention that I am struggling socially in Miami Beach. We’ve now lived here 2 years — so we’re no longer ‘new’ — and therefore I feel that I can no longer hold onto that as my excuse. We have met some lovely people, and there are a few relationships that seem to be in the early stages. But I still don’t feel like I (we?) have casual friends to make plans with on weekends, or to invite over for drinks on a Friday evening even if the house isn’t picture perfect. I don’t get many invites to things (rather pathetic to announce this on the internet, but it is what it is).
Part of it may be our jobs and our demographic. Everyone is ‘busy’, whatever that means. Part of it may be lack of effort on my part, although I feel like I have started to try a little bit harder. We do have a lot of family around, and often that is enough — I truly do love our family gatherings and visits. I also think there are just some other cultural/regional things that are a little bit hard to get around, and our recent trip to NC sort of highlighted some of those things.
But we are definitely not planning on a move any time soon (or really, ever) so I’m going to keep working on it.
Up on the table, wearing one of A’s sneakers. I think he even exhausted himself.
In other news, after nearly a year of eating paleo, I am going to give it a rest. I will have to give more details on another post (maybe tomorrow!), but yeah. I’m eating grains and cheese and peanut butter and white wine again (okay fine, I never really gave up the white wine) and it’s honestly nice to be back to eating the way I did for the prior 34 years of my life.
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The friends thing is tough. We’ve been in our home 5 years (basically since we got married) and still don’t have anyone local, really – we have friends in the same greater metropolitan area, but no one who’s less than a 30-45 minute drive, which shouldn’t be that bad except everyone’s so *busy* and I feel like it’s a big accomplishment to manage to get together more than once a year. I sort of thought it would be easier when we had a kid and said kid was in daycare because we’d meet other daycare families, but again, everyone’s busy. So I’ve reluctantly come to accept that I’m going to have to put more effort into it, but it’s not one of my natural strengths.
I can relate to your friends issue. I struggled for the first 18 months or so that we lived here in NC. I think you were actually my first non-work friend here! It took us a good 2-2.5 years to get into a good friend group where we can just have those impromptu game nights, lunch dates, and "hey i’m free tomorrow, wanna hang out" texts. I made a goal in 2013 that I would finish my year with at least one non-work friend, and I expanded in 2014 to have 2 new friends, and by the end of 2015 I want to have 4 new friends. I’ve already got 2! I think having a goal like that makes it more attainable. (I heard this on Gretchen Rubin’s podcast, she aims to make 3 friends in new situations – be it the parents in her kid’s class, in a book club, etc).
I think that changing/adjusting the way you eat makes sense after a year. I’m sure you’ve learned a lot about how certain carbs and grains make you feel, and you are a good moderator so I think you’ll find a way to add some things back in a way that is sustainable, and also indulge in old favorites (how did you go a year without biscuits?!) 🙂
You don’t sound pathetic, just normal. We rarely go out with friends — work OR non-work. I just don’t have the time, and rarely think to plan ahead in time to arrange anything, or I just feel too exhausted to plan. I think it’s the age and US society these days, unless you happen to live where you grew up, and your childhood friends do to.
I can’t believe you’ve been eating paleo for a year! Wow. The time really flies!
Making friends as an adult is really hard! Especially when you’ve come from a background of situations that lend you to automatic friends – college, med school, residency, etc. It’s hard moving to a place where everyone is established and busy. People in New York say it takes about three years here to really feel like you have "real" friends, just not people who you happen to hang out with. That’s how I started to feel after about three years. Sometimes people would ask if I thought I would leave NYC soon, and I’d always say, "I FINALLY feel like I have friends here – no!" Many times it’s about putting yourself out there. People are "busy" but they also like to be invited to do things. Whenever I would be upset about sitting on my couch and "no one asks me to do anything," I’d remind myself that I could put myself out there and ask people to do things with me too – it’s a two way street! But it’s hard to put yourself out there.
I can relate on both things. Not many friends, that kept with us after having a kid, and not a single friend , that has a kid. So basically no friend to talk about kids or have a playdate.
I have been eating almost fully paleo for more than a year . i would rather not go back to eating , especially grains, since knowing the effects of them, but sometimes I do miss being normal. Especoally at partys, restaurants. But I do feel better this way.
awwww… i haven’t caught up with your blog lately, but i miss you SOOOOO much… i’d still be your bestie if i lived closer. also – awesome post about the paleo. since i stopped nursing shia and have been unable to run ( 🙁 🙁 ) i am 5 lbs heavier. it sucks. but life is short. and pizza is good. and cameron is f’ing adorable. can’t wait to meet him in person. we’ll be in florida in february (likely..) hugs and kisses to you and j and a and c…. xoxoxo
ps – and oh yes – in our 7th year (SEVEN!!!) we finally have a community. wasn’t until year 5 that i really felt that.