A Letter on the Space Before Friendship
My Dearest Friends,
Making friends as an adult feels a little bit like dating.
You meet someone you like. You have a good conversation. Maybe you exchange numbers. And then you go home and begin the strange internal negotiation of whether they liked you as much as you liked them. Should I text? Did I already text too much? Should I invite her to something? Was she just being nice? Am I trying too hard?
You want to put your best foot forward without putting on a version of yourself that isn't entirely real. You want them to like you, but you want them to like you—not some carefully polished version you've created for the occasion. And somewhere in all of that, you're supposed to let friendship happen organically.
I know this. I've done this before.
I've moved somewhere knowing almost no one and, eventually, found people who became woven into the ordinary fabric of my life. Some friendships began almost immediately. Others took months. Some came from proximity, from living close enough that stopping by didn't require planning. Others grew from repeated conversations in places I happened to keep showing up. There have even been people I wasn't particularly sure I liked when I first met them who eventually became people I loved.
There is no formula, and perhaps that is what makes this part so difficult.
Because right now, I want people.
I really, desperately want people.
Not more events on my calendar. My calendar is full enough. Not more names in my phone or people I can wave to across a room. I miss having someone nearby with whom I can be honest. Someone I can tell that this PCS is kicking my ass. Someone I can joke with that I haven't had my breakdown yet because I haven't found an opening for it on the calendar. Someone who can hear that motherhood is hard today without needing me to immediately explain how much I love being a mother, or who can listen when marriage is hard without assuming my marriage is in trouble. Someone who understands that I can desperately miss my family and still admit that having everyone together in an unfamiliar space can be difficult.
Someone I can be quiet around. Someone who notices when I am.
I miss being known.
There are people who know me that way, of course. They just aren't here. They are scattered across the places we once called home, friendships built during chapters that have already ended. I can call them. I can send the text. I can reach backward and find people who already know the unpolished version of me, and I am deeply grateful for that. But there is something different about being known where you are, about having someone who understands the place you're standing because they're standing somewhere nearby.
I thought I would be farther along in finding that by now.
Usually, by this point after a move, our house is settled. The books are on the shelves. The board games were, naturally, unpacked first. Our home is ready for the last-minute invitation that has always come so easily to me. Come over. Bring the kids. We're ordering pizza. Do you want to play a game?
This time has been different. The house has taken longer. Life has been busier. I've said yes to too much while simultaneously feeling as though I don't have enough time for any of it. I've gone to the meetings and the events and the activities and then come home feeling the weight of everything I wasn't doing while I was gone. And somewhere inside all of that, I've been trying to make friends.
There are maybes.
A person who seeks out the seat beside mine. Someone who asks whether I'll be at the next event before deciding whether she'll go. Someone who notices that I don't quite seem like myself and takes the time to check on me. Conversations that linger a little longer than they have to. Names beginning to feel familiar. Texts exchanged between people who are still figuring one another out.
Maybe one of them will become my person here. Maybe several will. Maybe none of them will.
That's the strange thing about the beginning of friendship: we have no idea. We meet people who will eventually become important to us without realizing we're standing at the beginning of the story. And sometimes the people we are certain will become lifelong friends don't. Sometimes they are exactly the friends we need for one particular chapter, and then life carries us in different directions. Sometimes the person who initially rubs us the wrong way turns out to have been just as guarded as we were. Sometimes someone takes the first small risk—Want to come over? Do you want to get coffee? Are you going to be there?—and slowly, almost imperceptibly, we stop performing.
That is the part I want.
I want to get past wondering whether I sent one text too many. I want to stop wondering whether someone actually likes me or merely tolerates me. I want to stop calculating what I bring to the relationship and whether I am being useful enough, funny enough, helpful enough, interesting enough to earn another invitation. I want the friendship where I don't have to bring anything to the table except myself.
But I also know enough now to understand that I cannot force my way there. I can't decide someone is safe simply because I desperately need someone to be safe. I can't rush vulnerability because I am tired of being lonely. I can't turn a promising conversation into intimacy before we've had the ordinary accumulation of moments that makes intimacy possible.
And so I am caught in the uncomfortable space between desperately wanting my people and wanting to find them honestly. Naturally. Organically. Slowly enough that when I finally let someone see the raw version of me, it is because we have built something that can hold her.
And that means admitting something I would rather already be able to write in the past tense.
Right now, I am lonely.
Goddammit, I am lonely.
And it sucks.
The Lesson
Perhaps the lesson is simply that I can tell the truth about this season without turning it into a prophecy.
I am lonely right now.
That does not mean I am alone, and it does not mean I will always be lonely. There are people I love scattered across places I once called home, a family inside these still-settling walls, and names beginning to feel familiar in rooms that once held only strangers. There are people who might become my people. I don't know who they are yet, and I don't have to.
For now, I can send the text, take the seat beside someone, say yes to coffee, and eventually open my door. I can let the maybes remain maybes without demanding an ending from them. And when all of that still feels lonely, I can let that be true too.
Sometimes the lesson is simply:
This is where I am.
To the Spouse Who Hasn't Found Their People Yet
I know.
You went to the coffee. You introduced yourself. You exchanged numbers. You showed up to the thing even though walking into another room full of people who already seemed to know one another was the last thing you wanted to do. And you still went home without having anyone you could really call.
You may be surrounded by people and still feel painfully lonely.
You are allowed to say that.
You don't have to immediately follow it with gratitude. You don't have to remind everyone that military spouses are resilient. You don't have to turn it into a lesson about putting yourself out there. And you don't have to pretend that knowing this season will probably pass makes it hurt any less while you're living inside it.
Maybe there are already people around you who will eventually become yours. Maybe you've met them. Maybe you haven't. Maybe the woman you chatted with for twenty minutes last week will someday be sitting at your kitchen table while you tell her something you haven't told anyone else. Maybe she'll simply be someone you were glad to know for a little while.
You don't have to know yet.
Let the maybes be maybes. Let friendship grow slowly enough to become real. And in the meantime, when the loneliness feels particularly heavy, remember that being lonely does not mean you are alone.
You are simply living in the space before you know who will stay.
And if that space sucks right now, you don't have to pretend otherwise.
I won't either.
