Friends to Spare

So, for the past 14 months ish, I've been living in a brand new state, working in a brand new job (SAHM) with a brand new baby. So this left me in an uncomfortable position. I'm a very social person, and I'm the type of girl who needs to have 1 or 2 friends who really get me, who I can totally be myself around without needing to offer any explanations at all. I have been incredibly blessed in my life to have found friends like this at different times, but most important of all of them is definitely my best friend Steph.

Here's why I love Steph. She's the kind of girl who I can be honest about my faith with, we can ask each other to pray for things, and we both love God. But she is also the kind of girl that I can say things like "badass" to and we can both have about 4 too many drinks together and do really stupid things together... and it's still all good. We belt out lame songs from the 90's and laugh till we hurt. We're basically awesome. As much as I have come to love my life in McKinney, I miss Steph every single day.

We have helped each other through difficult break ups, celebrated engagements, Steph was Maid of Honor in my wedding, and in less that 2 months, I'll be a bridesmaid, and Cadence will be her flowergirl in her wedding! 

So when I moved here, I was lonely and scared. I didn't know anyone at all. So I made an effort right away to try to make friends with everyone I met. I now realize that this may have been a mistake. The people I tried so hard to be great friends with ARE wonderful people, but many of them are probably not the BFFs I was looking for. My mistake was that I was so desperate to find people to be friends with that I didn't take the time to find out enough about people to test the waters first. I jumped in with both feet. This left me in an awkward position of realizing later that I didn't really want to maintain some relationships, but that the other people wanted to maintain their relationship with me. Probably because I threw myself at them so whole-heartedly... some might call this "leading them on." My B.

Anyway, recently several events have unfolded with a couple different "friends" and I finally decided to be straight up honest with them about my feelings, with the knowledge that this could effectively end the relationship. Jonathon told me that he thought this was a major accomplishment, because it meant that I had finally reached a place socially where I had good friends who I cared about and therefore could be honest with the others since I had friends to spare. Hahaha.

So, next week is going to rock my face off because I'm going back to Colorado to visit my family, which rocks, but also while I'm there Steph will be visiting with her band and staying with my parents, which means I get a whole week of my Stephie. I'm so excited! And I'm also glad that I've reached a point where I don't need to make an effort to be friends with people I'm not interested in being friends with anymore. Because, if we're being honest... I just don't care. I don't want to have to be someone I'm not to make someone else feel comfortable around me. From this moment on, I'm only going to be myself. And ya'll can take it or leave it. I won't be hurt.  =)

And now, here's one of the first pictures of me and Stephanie together ever. The kind you wish you could forget ever happened, but instead you post it everywhere to remember just how awesome you were back then...