Instant Friends

When I first meet my husband, I couldn’t stand him. Ha. Seriously.

Well let’s back up, before I had even meet him I kept hearing about this “Josh Filler” character, like months before I had ever seen him. All of my current friends in college were really good friends with him and I heard about him all the time. All of the stories I heard were about them doing stupid stuff with this josh guy. Drove me nuts. Not only did I not know him, but seriously guys I figure we could talk about someone else. Then I meet him and ok maybe he was funny and super fun to be around…. But I still refused to like him.  After spending a whole summer around him, I would have considered us somewhat friends, but I had no intent of anything past that. Fast forward 1 year, we are back near each other for a summer and so begins our relationship.

Most of the relationships that mean something to me in life pretty much started this way. Where it takes a while to really get to know them before you are great friends with them. I feel like most of us could say that. I have a lot of friends, but I have a handful of really great friends, most of which took awhile to get that way.

But then you have a few of those “instant friends”. These are the friends that you don’t know how all of a sudden you clicked with them, but you could talk for hours… and hours… and it seems like you have known them your whole life.

 The first time this ever happened to me, I was at a going away party, Trisha and I sat down… 8 hours later we were kicked out of this house because we were still there, talking. We spent 2 weeks together before she moved and we have been friends since then. We are so much alike it’s actually scary and how crazy is it to talk to someone you just meet for 8 hours. Talk about instant.

The second time this happened, well I don’t actually know how this happened. No seriously. I am trying to wrap my mind around it, and I can’t. But my friend Caitlin and I… just became friends. Ha. I meet her right before josh and I got engaged. We talked about EVERYTHING… all the time. We worked together, lived near each other, and when someone bailed on being in my wedding… she stepped in. Another person that we are so much alike it’s scary.  She fits right into my family seamlessly and they all love her. THAT is the definition of an instant friend, someone you don’t even know how you became friends because it just happened.

The most recent friend that with, is Crystal. She works with my husband and I saw her frequently at the school. All of a sudden we get dinner, talk every time we see each other, and text. I don’t even see her that often and our friendship just developed. Crystal has been around for all three of my pregnancies. Each time I miscarried, she knew about it. I have talked through each pregnancy and miscarriage with her. This current pregnancy, I told her and she started to tear up. I could tell by the look in her eyes that she cared so much about me, that she just wants this pregnancy to be successful. (No joke she’s reading this and is probably tearing up right now..)

If you make the decision to speak out about the loss you have experienced or even if you are having problems conceiving, I promise you will make a lot of instant internet friends. There are people that I have never met that we know the inner working of each other’s lives, pregnancies and losses. There are people that I wasn’t close with in high school or college, but since have become great friends because of this shared journey. There are people that I recognize on websites like babycenter, that have been encouraging to me and that I have prayed for during their pregnancies. It is such a wonderful gift to be able to have the outlets that we do now.

Growing up I knew that my grandma had 3 miscarriages. One of them was when she was nearly 6 months.  I have had to ask questions since I have had my miscarriages because it isn’t something that she has ever really talked about. She is 73 and told me that back in the day nothing like this was talked about. She explained that if you had a miscarriage your doctors didn’t offer solutions or things to try next time. She also said that if you were having miscarriages, people assumed something was wrong with you personally. (of course the guy wouldnt have problems just the woman carrying the baby...)

My heart hurts that my grandma truly believed that there was something wrong with her and that she had no one to talk to about it. I couldn’t imagine 10 years of trying and 3 miscarriages later, the defeat I would feel. She sat by and watched her sisters all have children, loved on each of their children, not knowing if she would ever have her own. When I listened to her tell me her story she said she has realized over the years that it wasn’t her fault that she miscarried. But in the moment she thought that it was her fault and feared getting pregnant again.

Having no communication with other people about such a loss is terrible to think of. My papa isn’t a talker, at all, so I know she wasn’t talking with him. My wonderful grandma suffered silently through all three losses and panicked through 2 more pregnancies while she carried my mom and aunt. My heart is heavy to think that we have still carried that into the world today. Having a miscarriage is not something we talk about. You don’t even know people who have experienced it until you have one and they all come out of the wood work, and that is only if you choose to be open about it.

Making the decision to talk to people is a personal one. Some of us do better talking; some of us like to keep to ourselves. God has made each of us wonderfully unique. I choose to speak out for those of us that want to be able to talk about it. But that doesn’t make me any better than you. You have to be comfortable with where you are. I have to deal with several people removing me as a friend on FB because of my blog and telling me that they are blocking me. But I have also had so many instant internet friends (more than I can count) because I have chosen to speak up and ask for support. For me the friends and support out weight all the bad things that may happen.

I think it’s important to have some instant friends that support you through everyday life, whether it is in real life or internet life (haha)! You need those people that you don’t know how you became friends with them, but it was an instant bond or something that brought you together. I have the real life instant friends and more than I could list instant internet friends, that will all support me. What a wonderful friend to have. You arent friends because you have to be. (like when you are a kid and no one else is around so why not be friends) You are friends because you have something in common that has drawn you to one another. You are friends because you know they will support you through whatever you are going through even if they haven't been through it themselves. Find this kind of friend, online, at church, at school, whatever. Get 1 of them or 10 of them. They will help in the moments you need them the most.

Get the support you desire, whatever it is!  You deserve it!