Our Circle Changed, but It's Still Full
"Make new friends but keep the old. Those are silver, these are gold."
Years ago, when we lived in the metro Atlanta area, David and I would go out with our friends every weekend. We frequently had gatherings in our home, and during college football season, a group was always hanging out in our basement on Saturdays.
We hosted an annual pool tournament and Christmas party that grew larger every year as we added the older kids (our rule was you had to be 21). Our large group of friends was known as the FOKers, and we had other smaller groups as well.
During those years, most of us had high school or college-aged kids, so additional people were added to the invitation list each year. The last Christmas party we hosted before we moved had 50-60 people — our friends and their adult children with their significant others.
As our children grew older and their lives changed, so did ours. We all became empty-nesters and soon gained daughters-in-law or sons-in-law.
And then came the grandchildren. They changed our lives.
Instead of planning a trip to the newest restaurant in town or a local play, we planned a trip as often as possible to hold an infant, who quickly became a toddler, who, before we knew it, walked right into kindergarten.
We thought life passed quickly when we were raising our own children, but when it comes to grandchildren, life is slipping by faster than a bullet train. We are acutely aware that we have more years behind us than in front of us, and we try not to miss a minute of the blur whizzing past.
In 2015, David and I surprised our friends and family by downsizing. We wanted a smaller house and were done with the huge parties. But we didn’t know exactly where we wanted to end up, so we sold our home and moved into an apartment while we figured out our next step.
We kicked around the idea of an RV (too much work) or just traveling around the country, living in hotels. But those darn grandchildren kept getting in the way of our master plans. Although at the time, three of our grandchildren lived about three hours away, we found that we couldn’t stay away for more than a few weeks, which meant that traveling the country for months at a time was out of the question.
We did have lots of fun in our apartment, though. It was in a mixed-use area, so we could walk to Starbucks and several restaurants and bars. After about a year, we still didn’t know where we ultimately wanted to settle, but we knew we couldn’t continue renting.
We bought a small townhouse nearby and continued our fun. We were regulars at 2-3 bars in the area and meeting friends for dinner several nights a week. My friend Donna dubbed us “Empty Nesters Gone Wild.”
And then came 2020. Covid. The pandemic. And life changed.
Our son and daughter-in-law, who lived near us, moved several hours away to Statesboro with their infant son. So we had no grandchildren living in the same city.
The other grandparents who lived close to our grandchildren in Augusta could do the driveway drop-by. They saw the kids from a driveway distance a few times a week. We couldn’t do this often because it would be too hard on us and the kids. We got to see our friends from a distance, but we quickly realized that it was those babies who were weighing on our hearts. We Facetimed with all of them, but it was not the same as a personal connection.
And so, near the end of 2020, we had figured out our next step. We upended our lives and moved to Augusta. David was born and raised in the Atlanta area, and I had lived there for 35 years, all my adult life. Leaving was a big deal. But we moved one mile from our Augusta grandchildren and a little under two hours from our Statesboro one.
It was the right thing to do, but the move produced a new conundrum: we deeply missed our circle of friends.
Initially, we believed we would travel back and forth to Atlanta to visit with our friends every few weeks or so. We got over that real fast. Atlanta traffic is a bear. In reality, we only saw our friends every few months.
Recently, our son and daughter-in-law moved their family back to Atlanta, so now we are traveling back and forth every few weeks. However, we don’t see our friends often because we are there primarily to spend time with our family.
Last week, though, we traded houses. Our son, daughter-in-law, and their family went on vacation, and we stayed at their home for almost a week. We had dinner with old friends every night, met friends for lunch, hiked, golfed, and just spent time together. It was wonderful.
A couple of weeks before that, we spent the weekend at a lake with my oldest and dearest friend and her husband, hanging out with some other friends we have known for over twenty years.
And just a few weeks before that, I was at a conference and had an opportunity to spend the evening with one of my best friends from high school.
These things were not happenstance. They were intentional. Friendships wane over time, often due to a lack of connection and proximity. If you want a friendship to withstand time and distance, you have to be intentional and not only take advantage of opportunities to see each other but also CREATE those opportunities as often as you can.
During the pandemic, we started having a weekly Zoom cocktail hour with one couple. After we moved, we continued this get-together. Not every week, but maybe once every couple of months, we will get on Zoom and catch up with each other’s lives. This connection with them, even briefly and only ever so often, is important to us.
Our circle has changed. The empty-nester phase is all about catching up on the social life with friends that you miss while raising children. That gives way to the grandparent phase, which is all about making memories with these little people.
Life is different. Our circle has changed, but our cup is still full.