Finding Friends Late In Life

It’s kind of scary, and not easy, and absolutely essential.

I have just written a couple of days ago about the fact that I signed up for a Meetup group, a “Stitch and Bitch” group that meets at a local yarn shop. I am scared to death. I keep hoping when Sunday comes (They meet every Sunday at 2:00.) I won’t chicken out. I wrote to the woman who runs the meetup group who is the owner of the yarn shop. I told her I was shy to come and wasn’t sure what to bring or do, I explained about my situation having done fiber work for years, and then the fire, and so on, and that I was just getting going again. I said from the pictures everyone looked so young and I wasn’t sure if being 64 I would be a good fit.

I got the loveliest note from her yesterday. She wrote me that they had women in the group from 16 to in their 80’s and that I should just bring “whatever makes me happy.” That both made it easier and scarier because it was good to know, I felt like I would maybe fit, but then I also felt like I had no reason NOT to go! But I’ll tell you what, I have been searching for some time for the right kind of group I might shyly venture out into to meet people and if a fiber arts group meeting at a charming little yarn shop isn’t going to fit the bill nothing is! I’ve got to go.

Today I searched around the house in the places where the bits and bobs of fibery things that survived the fire are. I picked up a little of this and a little of that and then sat here bewildered. If I had been actively doing some kind of fiber art for awhile again now I would feel like I had something to bring to work on but I haven’t. Oh dearie me. And I am thinking of all of the ways I am “different” or odd or, well, fill in the blank with any peculiar trait you can think of. I may navigate social media pretty well but I don’t do real life social settings well at all. I feel panicky and afraid, I kind of hang on the fringes of things feeling like I just want to disappear into the wall paper and wondering how soon I can go home. But this just won’t do. I feel like I’m about to start school in a new school, you know, the ubiquitous new kid.

It was so much easier when I was younger. You just kind of fell into being friends with people because you were part of things. School, work, and for me most of the friends of my adult life came from groups I, or we as a family, were involved in because of our kids. I was a La Leche League Leader, a childbirth educator, we were homeschooling and involved in homeschooling groups, all of the parents from all of these various things would get together for pot lucks while the kids played, the best friends of my life came out of these years. My dear friend Noni came out of those years. We’ve known one another forever! But it’s different today. No kids, no family, I’ve barely left the house in 20 years, and the few places I tried, or thought I might meet people and make friends, a couple of different churches, a couple of different books clubs years ago, just didn’t work out at all. People weren’t unfriendly by any means, not at all, but I just didn’t somehow fit in.

And then for decades I taught my writing classes and many of my good friends began as my students. I still miss teaching and writing with groups of people but it’s just not something that seems possible now. In the years when I was doing that nobody else was doing what I was doing. Today everybody and her great aunt Nancy are teaching some kind or journal or writing class. And I was more comfortable being out in the world then. Those were wonderful years, but that ship has sailed.

And what do you say to people? I teeter back and forth between barely being able to open my mouth and spilling my whole life story, the latter of which just isn’t appropriate which I know so I mainly just smile (my lopsided smile, which makes me even more self-conscious, I really did stop going out into the world pretty much entirely after being stricken with Bell’s Palsy, and ending up lopsided for good) and praying somebody will talk to me and at the same time being afraid that they will! I dislike small talk, that flitting about like waterbugs on the surface of life and never really saying anything that matters, but you have to start somewhere, and I have an absolute horror of the conversation turning political. I had my years when I was young of marching, working for causes, being out there in the world, believe it or not, but that ship has sailed too and I just want to talk knitting and maybe books and those sorts of things. Is that too much to ask? Maybe it is. Even though I have feelings about the political climate and what is happening in the world and do things behind the scenes that no one will ever know about I can’t handle going there. I’ve begun to feel part of me pulling back from social media too because one is just inundated with heated emotional rhetoric about very important issues but it’s just not a place that I can go. Does that mean I won’t fit in out there in the world today? It does not, I can assure you, mean that I am uncaring or unfeeling, I care so much I can’t bear it. Will a knitting group be a safe place to go? I hope so.

The thing is what will happen to me if I don’t get out there and try? I had the glorious year and a half when Noni was here every weekend but she can’t do that anymore, can only come once in awhile, she has lots of other friends and things she is involved in, I don’t, and I’ve got to try. I am not going to be a big “goer outter” but it would be nice to meet someone for coffee or a glass of wine or dinner once in awhile. And I would love to have something like this Stitch and Bitch group to go to weekly. Just imagine. You see I have romantic notions about such things, one of my favorite things to read in the last years have been the knitting shop mystery series books, the Seaside Knitters books, by Sally Goldenbaum. The group of women who meet regularly in the yarn shop each week to knit and talk, well, it just sounds dreamy to me. Makes me feel wistful and fills me with a sense of longing. I’m going to go. I’ve got to go.

If you have found yourself later in life trying to go out into the world and make friends I would love to hear from you, where you went, how you handled it, what you did, or, if like some of my friends you are engaged with wonderful things that you enjoy that are great for we who are older now I’d love to hear from you what those things are. Maybe there are things I’ve never thought of? And if you have been part of a “Stitch and Bitch” group I’d really love to hear from you.

I am so nervous, and I am feeling so shy, and I hope it all goes well. I will keep you posted. Wish me luck!