the funny thing about life.

I used to have this idea in my head when I was in my mid 20′s.  I was having fun.  I was meeting friends at bars, early after work;  staying out late; going to dance clubs to dance (and to see who I could dance with).  I had friends over for parties – dinner parties – super fun, chaotic, late nights with too much wine drunk, too much food ate but always with a feeling of contentment and a giddy camaraderie.  In my mid-20′s, most of my friends were single, some were dating and just the very few were in serious relationships.  We all seemed to want to find the “right one” but there was no real sense of urgency or desperation in finding that right guy or gal.

So back to my thought back then – when I was young.  I used to think that my friends, once they hit their mid-30′s (yes, mid-30′s, I know), we would be having the BEST time together.  We’d all meet and marry (or partner with) just great individuals – men and women that we all really enjoyed and loved hanging out with. The kind of person , I’d say, that if I called up my friend and their “mate” answered, I’d be just as happy having a conversation with them.  This hitting the mid-30′s thing:  we’d all hang out together; have even more extravagant and gourmet dinner meals and see each other every weekend, if not more frequently, catching a drink at a local bar now and again.

We’d be happy and settled into our careers.  We’d all be living in our own homes.  Kids were a bit vague in my mind but I knew that kids would be “in the mix” for a few of us and that they be just as easy to handle as unloading groceries from the back seat of a car.

Back to the career.  I seriously thought that with us all being mid-career, we’d spend less time at the office and have a manageable workday – nothing too taxing.  The key to this dreamy idea was that we’d all still be hanging out together and loving each other’s partners.

Now that was a fantasy land!

The stone cold reality of life is that everything becomes a priority.  A day with 24 hours is not enough time.  Responsibilities increase over time and often, exponentially.  Having a partner, a child, a house, a car, a high-powered job constrains time versus expanding it.  And of course, perceptions change.  I know this sounds obvious.  Going to bars.  Drinking a lot.  Staying out late.  Hanging out with your buds’.  They all become work.

I don’t miss the drinking out, late at night.  I don’t miss wanting to find a partner.  I miss the “free” time I seemed to have when I was younger.  The commitments with friends that are so different than job/career/corporate commitments.  What I miss most are my friends.  Seeing them.  Talking with them.  Having them close at hand.  Talking to them…really, whenever I wanted.  I particular miss my GIRL friends.

Life is precious.  So quick and subtle, unless when it’s brutally obvious. So consumed.  So wanting to be planned.  These days I have to work to see my friends; to speak to my friends on the phone.; to email my friends; to actually see my friends in real time.  The work is worth it but it is no less than work.

Everyone’s heard about the rock and sand analogy.  The rocks in a container are your priorities.  Those are one’s absolutes – what is important and critical and definite in one’s life.  The sand fills the space in between.  Sand is everything else in life.  All the mundane tasks, the necessaries, the “to do’s”.  We have to be clear about what we want to focus on in life (rocks) and make them a priority before we pour the sand into the container, otherwise, the everyday becomes our whole existence.  Is there any way we can re-look at this rock/sand trade-off?

Here’s my quick take for the day.  I love, adore and admire my husband.  I couldn’t think of life without my baby girl.  I cherish my sister, my best friend to best all other best friends.  I really enjoy cooking great meals.  Working out brings me mental sanity.  Reading a good book makes me feel content…and a multidimensional person.  Sleeping is sacred and yet, an allusive lover these days.  These things, these aspects of my life – they are my every day.  I would not be the person I am if not for these aspects.  Yet, as I reflect in my 40th year on this planet, what becomes  a clear priority for me is to have the companionship of my girlfriends.  Why can’t I make them the rocks in MY jar?  Why not?  Why can’t I make a priority my incredibly accomplished girlfriend, who’s going through a divorce; the brilliant one who is struggling to find what her career path is after so many particularly high-point career moments; the independent one, who’s transitioning her mental state to life as a single, career woman when all she’s ever wanted to be is married with family; or the one who’s battling a life-altering degenerative illness in the prime of her life.  I want to make these women my rocks right now.

I can shake out the jar when I feel it’s time to do so.  Re-jigger the rocks.  Re-classify the priorities.  Re-settle the sand into all the open spaces.  But for now, my sense of urgency is to be there for my women friends, my kindred spirits, as we walk this journey called life.