The Kind of Friend I Wanna Be

It always seems to happen the same way. One week, I am reaching out to get together with friends and the next all I want to do is stay curled up on my couch. Maybe it's the introvert in me, I am realizing more and more as I get older. I love, love, love getting together with friends, but, at the end of the day, I feel worn out, tired, and just want to relax by myself.

As healthy as it can be to make sure you take care of yourself, something else happens during this time. At first I find myself very driven to reach out to friends, make plans, and keep busy, while the following week or maybe even two or three weeks it's a little like I fell off the face of the earth. I am sure not all of my friends feel this way, but I am sure some do.

Today as I got together with a group of ladies, who are also mothers, I caught myself feeling distant, feeling maybe just a bit more introverted. I felt tired, hungry, and well... to be honest, I have a list of excuses. As much as I wanted to be present and make friends, I found myself wanting to be home, curled up on the couch with a Starbucks. I hate it when I am like this.

The truth is that being introverted is not a bad thing at all. But on the other hand, I also feel like I have experienced the receiving side of this cycle. I know life is busy, and trust me I feel it too, and we are all different people with different priorities. However, I still feel like I am missing the mark when suddenly I have not seen/talked to any of my friends in who knows how long. Part of me really appreciates the me time, and another part of me wishes I could do it all.
All of this to say it was an incredible self discovery and realization of the person I don't want to be.

I don't want to be that friend who forgets birthdays, who screens calls, or hermits until I feel like I want to do it again. No, I want to be the type of friend who, despite the business and chaos of life, works hard. When I say work hard, I mean work hard at being a good friend.
The truth is, the friends we have in our lives are our village; they are the very people who inspire us daily. There are always those friends you can not talk to for who-knows-how-long and everything picks up where it left off, but then there are those friends that really depend on regular communication in a relationship.

I want to be the type of friend who can put her laundry aside and have coffee with a girl friend. I want to know I am the type of friend that someone can rely on, and I want to know how much my friends mean to me.
Life does get busy, don't get me wrong. There are always tons of things to juggle. But I guess that is where I want to be a different person. I want the people in my life to be at the top of my priority list. Not after laundry, not after dishes. No, I want them to be right after God and family time. Maybe I am just realizing more and more what really matters in life, and having a clean house and a made bed is all good and fine; but when faced with what I will do with my day, I want to know it is the people I love that come first.

Yours Truly,
Julie