My Favorite Magazine

I know that reading magazines is suddenly out of vogue.
That's okay to me because I am no longer of an age that being in vogue matters much to me.

When my work life changed I decided that I didn't need all these magazines coming to my home.  It was a first step in cutting back the excess. I kept one magazine subscription going strong.  More Magazine.

I love this magazine.  It's self promotion states it is for Women 40 and over.
Because of that you won't see the mommy baby stories, but stories of your children getting married, leaving the nest or perhaps what it's like to be a mommy later in life. That's about all you'll ever see about being a mom. It's about all of you.  Not just the mommy in you.

This magazine celebrates being older, being wiser, reinventing yourself in your career or life or just wanting to look great in the latest fashions in an age appropriate way.
Hey we need our fluff too you know.

This weekend I gave myself a few minutes to actually read a whole story from beginning to end in between loads of laundry and washing my dog stained floors.
This story really struck a chord with me. It was called Friends, Interrupted.

The story examines how difficult it is to make girlfriends after a certain age.
We no longer are at the mommy and me play dates making friends with women sharing poopy stories. We no longer are hanging out at bars with our girlfriends crying over our martini's about the men who won't return our calls. Or we just drifted apart after the divorce.

We are grown women who find it difficult to make new friends.
I personally find that women I meet don't nurture female friendships like when we are young.  Once married, on career path and/or with children we get so busy that we neglect our girlfriends and time moves us all on.  Girlfriends are the first to go when busy it seems.

But the point that drove it home for me was how we can choose to move away from people over time or perhaps they have moved away from you.  Perhaps they went with the Ex after the divorce or the one friend who just sucks the living life out of you with pessimism and negativity.

I find that because I moved so much for my career that I have friends everywhere but where I live now. How bad is that? It is a plane ride away to all of them. 
I want to call them and say, C'mon over for some wine or coffee or whatever it may be.
I want to sit and bitch or laugh and share. I just want to have girlfriends close by again.
A true friend who will allow you to complain about your hubby but not hold it against him. She knows it's just that day that he is driving you nuts.  A safe place between friends.

I have let some "friends' go by the way side on purpose.
One that comes to mind was recently.  She was just so darn negative that it drained me to talk with her.....or to listen to her is probably better stated. I don't remember it being this way at the beginning. Was she this way and I didn't noticed or did it become more in time as she became so miserable in her own life and skin?

This poor gal was in a bad marriage with difficult kids.
She hated her life although she would never say those words and deny it if anyone ever did say them to her.
She complained for the last 20 yrs I knew her about the same things.
Yet she didn't do anything different to make things better or to change them.
She never wanted to make the changes necessary to make her life better so I just listened, and listened and listened.  Then I noticed that as my career moved up and on she would be meaner and negative about anything I did. I found myself leaving out things I had done.
I purposely found myself leaving out places I had gone, things I bought or any updates in general of my life. If I felt like complaining about something that was all I did because that is all she could handle.  If she thought I was unhappy it made her happy. Is that really a friend?

One day I wrote a funny email to my friends on my birthday with a series of photo's of a gorgeous home on the lake where our modest little home lives.  I wrote, "look what Rick bought me for my birthday!" 
It was a beautiful home on several acres and was also several zllion dollars. 
So everyone knew it was a joke. 
All wrote back funny things like, "And I was thrilled when my hubby bought me a used car!"  "That is exactly what I was going to get you now only my bottle of wine will do"
You know silly things like that.
But her response was, "that color in the kitchen is dreadful and that wainscoting is so this or that and on and on of a series of negativity of the home as though this was real."
That was the proverbial last straw for me. This was obviously a joke but was her response a joke?  So I asked.  Nope she thought it was a dreadful place that would soon be outdated.
And off she went.

As she rambled on my mind wandered.  I thought why do I bother with all this garbage? 
I'm too old to give a hoot.  I don't want to be around people who are so toxic. 
So we said our good byes that day on the phone and that was the last time I contacted her. She only reached out once to send me an email about some political rhetoric. 
I don't know if she knew I was pulling away and that is why I have not heard from her. 
Or perhaps she didn't believe my repeated attempts at trying to convince her this home really wasn't a gift just a joke.  For all I know she is mad that I haven't invited her there.
Because if she thought it was my home she could never be happy for me she could only be green with envy and she would stay away. 
Both are ridiculous and neither are friendship.

The article made me feel better that I wasn't the only one out here looking for pals.
I love my hubby but honestly I just need girlfriends once in awhile.
Guess that's why we all blog .... to connect.

But the article also told of great ways to get women together for no other reason than socializing.  No books to read, not sweaters to knit.  To just get together to socialize and let it take it's form.

I'd like to try that.  But it comes full circle for me I'm afraid. Now where do I come up with these interesting women to invite because that seems to be the problem!