We know each other now, don't we?

Living in northern New Jersey for seven years, I realized that most young adults there have lived in the same area for their entire lives. It's hard to break into tight-knit circles of friends who have known each other since they were in diapers; it's harder still when one lets you in, but her friends shut you out. Moving to northern Virginia was a different experience altogether; here, friends are temporary, people are transient, and jobs shift almost hourly. In the less than two years that Jeff and I have been here, we've already lost six close friends for various reasons; that's a hard blow, and it makes us newly cautious.

Going into this weekend, I was worried. M was away for a tournament, and L was out of town as well. Jeff had to work Friday and Saturday nights, as well as a few hours on Sunday. I did a great deal of figurative and literal hand-wringing, counting and recounting the small handful of women who actually know exactly what's happening in my life at all times, worrying that none of them were actually in the same state as me. I questioned how one makes new friends at 34, and I wished--for the umpteenth time--for the perfect getting-to-know you accessory: a baby or a dog. And then I recalled a wonderfully insightful text L sent me a few weeks before:

Try new things and take some chances. It opens doors for you!

Simple, right? At the time I received the message, I started on a quest for new classes to take at a community center or new shows to audition for in the area. However, it never occurred to me that the simple act of making a friend could be taking a chance--even though it's one of the biggest risks we take as adults.

This weekend, I made friends. Not every encounter was perfect, but I'd liken the experience to being back out in the dating pool; only one will be the man you'll marry, but every one is an opportunity for a relationship that may fit in some corner of your life. I got up the courage to invite a friend from RCC to lunch; Jeff and I spent time outside with our neighbors and their little ones on Saturday morning; I finally returned to The Bump's TTCAL board (that's Trying to Conceive After a Loss, for non-bumpies!). I found friendships in expected and unexpected ways, in real life and online communities, in women and men in similar stages of life to my own. Most importantly, perhaps, I realized that not everyone is going to move tomorrow or misjudge me in a week or feel completely horrified at the thought of talking about our little Blueberry. And even if they do, I learned that it just might be worth the risk to find the good ones.

In The Wizard of Oz, after she's joined forces with the Scarecrow and the Tin Man, Dorothy says the following:

Oh, you're the best friends anybody ever had!

And it's funny, but I feel as if I'd known you all the time, but I couldn't have, could I?

I guess it doesn't matter much anyway.

We know each other now, don't we?

Yes, I suppose we do, Dorothy. And, if we'd met ten years ago, perhaps we wouldn't have been friends at all.