5 Friday Favorites: August 9, 2024

It's time for my Friday link up with  A Little Bit of Everything and Momfessionals. 

On Fridays I share things that made me happy from the week - a photo, a song, a quote, a beauty product, a recipe, a pair of cute shoes, etc. If it's a product, sometimes it's something I actually own and sometimes something I just saw online that gave me a smile. Sometimes it's serious and sometimes it's silly. I suppose I believe that God is in the simple details of life and yes, I can even find Him in a tube of lipstick.

Good morning and happy Friday from rainy, dreary Virginia. I have to say that I'm totally here for this weather because the high today is only 84 and the sun will come out tomorrow with a high of only 88. It appears that Jesus does, in fact, love me. 

Before I get to this week's Friday Favorites, a note about Sandwich, the book I recommended last week. Usually I wait until I finish a book to include it in my Friday Favorites, but I was enjoying it so much right off the bat that I mentioned it before I finished. I finished it over the weekend and I honestly liked it, but it turned out to be much more tragic and sad than I anticipated. Just a warning - it is funny and sweet and I found much of it relatable, but I also found parts of it very unsettling. 

Anyway, here are some favorites from this week. 

1. Beach Triple Cloth Wide Leg Pants and Ruffle Tank

I bought this set from Loft a couple of weeks ago. You have to buy each piece separately. The pants are here and the top is here. I love the fabric because it's soft, not at all itchy or stiff. and really cool (as in temperature-cool, not necessarily The Fonz-cool. I'm not a good judge of that anymore.) Both pieces are 50% off right now. 

2. Bev Sparkling Rose in a really cute can

At Drew's summer league baseball games there was a Starr Hill Brewery truck and they sold this wine in a can which is maybe the best packaging I've ever seen. I know wine preferences are very personal, but if you like dry wine, this one is great and the bubbles make it seem very summer-y. Plus did I mention the can? HOW CUTE IS THE CAN?

3. Salt and Stone Bergamot and Hinoki Body Wash

I recently ran out of my go-to body wash that I've been using for years and decided to try something different this time. Feel free to be inspired by my fearlessness to throw caution to the wind and boldly choose a new path in my showering journey. 

I keep seeing Salt and Stone body products all over social media. Then last week I went to lunch with a friend and she smelled amazing. She said she was wearing Salt and Stone Santal and Vetimer body mist. You might recall that I just ordered some body mist due to the fact that my niece smelled so amazing on our beach trip. I understand now that I sound like a creep who goes around smelling people. 

Anyway, I needed new body wash. I like citrus-y scents in the summer. I ordered the Salt and Stone Bergamot and Hinoki Body Wash. It's way more expensive than the one I usually use and I don't actually know what Bergamot is, nor do I know what Hinoki is. The internet assures me these are citrus scents. I haven't received the body wash yet. I hope all goes well. Thank you for reading three paragraphs about this.

4. The Perfect Wife on Hulu

Drew and I watched The Perfect Wife on Hulu this week and IT IS BANANAS. People are whack, y'all. It's three episodes and it will have you yelling at your tv. Here's where I tell you without hesitation that it's unsettling, disturbing and did I mention BANANAS?

5. Some Words on New Seasons of Friendship

It seems that as I sit to write here each week, this transitional season in which I find myself provides another revelation. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how it has brought me a new perspective on minding my own business. I have been up in everyone else's business for quite some time now, so it appears this is going to take some work. 

I wrote about how making decisions seemed to be easier when I had children in the house. I knew my priority in making choices about even the most basic personal things. When I would shower, where and what I would eat, who I would spend time with  - all of these essentially centered around what was best for those little people with whom I had been entrusted. 

I find now that I don't necessarily have to consider them for every little decison and I'm just not used to that yet. When our kids all leave, we suddenly have the chance to be selfish. And I don't know many women my age - mothers or not - who are adept at knowing what they really want and need. 

Unfortunately, as I've mentioned 7,000 times, I lost my mom just as Drew, my last son, was leaving for college. I've discovered that grief breeds a certain selfishness that I wasn't aware was coming. Selfishness, to be honest, came pretty easy for me in the last year and a half. What I seemed to have done was to form an insular club of sorts with those who shared my pain - which was basically a club that included only my brother, my sister, my dad, me and my husband and boys. 

That resulted in a real lack of attention to my friendships at a period of time when maintaining those relationships was going to require more intention than before. When I look back at the past 18-20ish years, it feels like friendships were easier. And to a great degree, I think they were easier for the same reason decision-making was easier. Because the friendships I've had in the past two decades mostly came by way of my children.

I live far away from my high school and college friends and though they are incredibly special to me, they haven't been in my day to day life for over 30 years. Last week I was chatting with one of my friends who I consistently saw several times a week for many years when the kids were at home. She and many of my closest friends came into my life either because I was a stay-at-home mom or because I was a baseball mom. When my life revolved around my children's activities, friendships seemed to flourish on automatic pilot. 

Whether we labeled it that way or not, my friends and I usually had a scheduled "date" at least once, if not several times, a week. When the kids were small we all met outside in the alley after naptime because we needed to talk to people who didn't also require us to tie their shoes. Later on our "friendship date nights" were determined by what day and what time the game started. I rarely sat with Steve at baseball and basketball games. (It is still better this way. Trust me.) 

Outside in the alley when our kids were toddlers or in the bleachers when they grew up a bit, we sat together and shared our lives. We were invested in each other. We knew if someone had a hard day at work or if someone's kid had been sick or if someone's mother-in-law was visiting. We loaned each other snacks, blankets and sunscreen as well as recommendations for easy dinners and good OB-GYNs.

As we neared the end of each of the boys' many years in sports and they moved away to college, I knew to prepare myself for the hole that would leave in my life. I knew I would miss their presence in the house. I knew I would miss watching them play. I knew I would miss their friends coming in and out. I was aware that those experiences would go away. 

I don't think I understood how much I would miss the women who experienced all of this with me. I don't think I realized that the community could vanish if I wasn't tuned into it. Truth be told, on top of the exhaustion that grief about my mom and worry about my dad heaped on me in the last year, I've carried around quite a bit of shame and anxiety about my lack of connection with my friends.

This is not to say that people left me. They didn't. My friends were and have been wonderful to me. They were compassionate and encouraging. But at some point, if I was available - which wasn't often - I think I just figured I was kind of becoming a bummer to be around, so I wasn't great about reaching out and connecting. Maybe grief tricks you into feeling crappy about everything. Or maybe the challenges that these kinds of life changes bring to us offer a chance to re-evaluate how much attention we've been giving to the people who have been the most important in our lives.

As I have awakened out of the selfishness that seemed to come right on the heels of grief - both at the loss of my mother and at the loss of this season of life I loved so much - I have realized that friendship - NEWS FLASH - takes effort and intention. The community in which we flourished doesn't need to wither away just because our kids aren't there to be the impetus anymore. It's just that it's going to take a little bit of effort to preserve it. 

Maybe you're thinking, DUH. Maybe I'm the only one who is just now working this out in her peri-menopausal brain. Seems pretty obvious. We talk a lot about intention in regard to fostering a healthy marriage relationship or a parent/child relationship, but I wonder how much we expect friendship to be easy breezy. 

Unfortunately, I think I did. I've been pretty crappy about making an effort. And that's not who I want to be. If you've been burdend by a significant loss or change, maybe like me, you felt ill-equipped to be an active participant in your friendships lately. To be in community, to bear another's burden or to celebrate another's triumph takes effort. When you're exhausted by your own stuff, it can be hard. But I'm realizing that connection is absolutely crucial to a joyful life, especially when you've walked through a period that's been a straight-up shitshow. (If you're reading from heaven, Mom, sorry for the language, but you know it's true.)

I hope this doesn't sound like a pity party. It totally isn't. I have wonderful friends who I love and who I know love me. I'm just sharing one of the many lessons I've learned in this weirdo season - one which consistently has me thinking, "WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL IS GOING ON?" in so many areas of my life. I hope it might resonate with some of you. 

In the last week, I laughed until I cried while some of my high school friends and I texted each other all afternoon. We were all cheerleaders together and we're kicking around a name for our group chat. The leader at the moment is "The Rusty Pom-Poms". I sat face to face and had a 3 hour dinner with a group of women who have been dear to me for over 17 years. We met when the boys were in elementary school and they're now all 23-year-old grown men which is the stupidest thing we've ever heard. I talked to my high school bestie for an hour on the phone about new love and aging parents and adult children. And I got in touch with some college friends because I heard a Janet Jackson song on the radio and it seemed like five minutes ago that we were dancing around the sorority house together.

I made some small steps. I've got a lot more work to do to come out on the other side of this season of loss. But I feel lighter and happier already, so I know that it'll be worth it.  Pick up the phone. Send the text. Make the plans. We are meant to walk through life with each other. All of life. There really is no other way.

Thanks for reading, y'all. Have a great weekend.

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