Cloudya

We have this thing we do, my friend Carrie and I.  Okay she’s not “my friend Carrie” so much as this girl I met once at a party and then added on Facebook and never really talked to again.  But then we got pregnant around the same time.  And had babies around the same time.  And started to go crazy around the same time…

So we started doing this thing.  Every Friday.  We trade off.  One week I go to her place, kid in tow, and the next week she brings her little dude over to mine.  Whoever is doing the traveling stops off to pick up lunch.  This week I’m hosting and she’s promised to bring over Chipotle.  I’m not gonna lie, I’m more than a little excited.

But here’s the thing, were it not for our kids, we might have never reached out to each other and established a relationship beyond Facebook, and that’s pretty much how it’s been with everybody in my life until now.  I’m good at making surface friends.  Friends whose Facebook status you thumbs up.  Who pop up in your feed but never your real life.  Who wish you a happy birthday on your wall and make nice comments on your photos, but never move beyond that.  I’m great at that!  But ask me to meet you for lunch and I’ll find a million excuses why I can’t make it.  It’s a weird case of social phobia that’s always kind of bothered me but not enough to do something about it.  I have walls.  I don’t like them there but I’m not sure how to get over or around them.

So along comes Brandon.  This little bugger who suddenly pushes me to get over myself and just like that, I do.  Well okay not “just like that.”  The anxiety and fear and self-doubt are still there.  But I wiggle past all that and I do what I have to do, for both our sakes.  I get out to story time.  I make mommy friends.  I have them over to my apartment and I don’t clean up first.  I let people in.

So that’s the thing we do, this girl who is becoming my friend Carrie and I.  We reach out to each other and help each other negotiate the rocky terrain of new motherhood.  We keep each other sane and we learn from each other.  We watch our kids grow, week by week.  We talk.

We eat Chipotle.