Getting involved

I don't have a lot of friends here.  For quite awhile, I think I was too shell-shocked by all the changes and too engrossed in my children to really care about making new friends, I mean I have friends, the best friends possible.

They just don't live here.

Slowly I have realized I need to make friends.  It's good to have people that care about you and what happens to you.  It's good if they don't all live hundreds of miles away.

So I joined a book club.  I'm still tentative around there.  I don't belong yet, but I'm working on it.

I decided to try to volunteer more at school.  I could meet like minded people.  I went on the choir field trip and enjoyed chatting with the other mothers.  Monday I signed up to help feed the choir kids (all 400+ of them) before the big Christmas concert.

I was talking to the other mothers while we were getting set up and I realized, "These are my people!"

Mothers of children in performing arts tend to have a lot in common.  Make them all Mormons and you have the makings of people that get each other.  Some of them were the mothers of Braeden's good friends that I'd never met because the boys could all drive themselves and the mothers never interacted.  We all compared notes on our sons' missions.  We are all going through the same withdrawal and trying to figure out what to do with all the leftovers since those big boys are gone.

Then the kids descended to get their food.  I saw Emma and her friends and I love those girls.  Emma hit the jackpot in the friend department.  I saw a few of the Young Women from church.  I saw Bridger, Braeden's good friend that is still in high school.  He said, "That email from Braeden today..."

I said, "I know, I cried."

He said, "I just can't...all those guys on their missions..."

--> Then he walked away, shaking his head.

Several of the kids went out of their way to thank us for feeding them and that's a universal truth among performing arts kids.  They are well mannered and comfortable talking to adults.  (Maybe all teenagers are that way and I just mostly interact with the performers.)

The concert was great and I am always floored by their talent.  I loved being a teeny bit behind the scenes, although it does come with hazards.  Earlier I had witnessed a beautiful tall girl put her arm around another girl with Downs Syndrome who is in the choir.  The tall girl said, "Are you excited?"

The other girl smiled a smile that could light up a whole city block and said, "Yes!"

When those two lovely girls walked onto the stage, the tall one helping her friend know where to stand, I remembered the scene earlier and I started crying.

It's tough to be me.  And why do I ever leave home without Kleenex?  I mean, that is just basic safety.