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There is a question that plagued me daily while I lived in a big city where I knew no one. "How do you make friends?"- When do you begin to feel like you are apart of the life around you- instead of just an observer?

It wasn't until I began to pack up my apartment in this city, that still felt somewhat foreign after a full year, that I realized I was leaving something. There I was packing boxes, and the phone was ringing - and to my complete shock they were local calls. People who had found out I was moving. I had told my one friend and that was it- and all of a sudden everyone was sad. I remember crying, not because I was sad to be leaving, but because it would have been nice to know someone cared while I was actually there.

Strangely enough, I am starting to hear that little question bouncing around in my head, again. "Where could I meet a friend?" or "Wouldn't it be nice to have someone to hang out with on a Thursday evening?" I am lonely. Really? Strange. I have an amazing fiancee who is my very best friend. I have college friends all over the country. I have the same "best friend" that I have had since 7th grade. My fiancee has a great group of friends. I work with a lot of people. I have not just one, but two families.

I am starting to realize, though, that with some exceptions I am either coming or going in many of those friendships. College friends are starting to drift apart, we are all doing different things in very different places. K and I desperately try to stay in each other's lives, but with fiancees, busy schedules, and different states it is hard. A and KL are in such different places in their lives than I am. In essence, all the people who really know me are on the phone with me, but not next to me, while I try and figure out something like my wedding.

In other areas of my life right now, I am the observer, the newcomer. I am the new social studies teacher. I am jff's fiancee. I am a player on the frisbee team. I am a shadow in the room, but not really a separate person in those places. Conversation goes on around me but not always with me. Hopefully in time, those people will be friends, I will be an individual to them, but mostly not yet.

So as I move forward into the future, I wish for friends of my past. I try not to believe that after a certain age, "you just don't make friends like you used to". I am going to keep hoping there are future friends out there who will give me an honest answer about how a pair of pants look on me, who have a good kitchen table to talk at, and who will laugh with me about the those goofy things we all do each day. And although jff does all of this and more, he just isn't a good girl friend. Girls just need girls sometimes. So, in the mean time, I will keep my eyes peeled, with preference going to a gal with a local phone number...