The middle place

I just finished reading Kelly Corrigan's The Middle Place this morning, a memoir about the middle place where being a mother and being a daughter overlap. At the end she includes this fabulous essay on the transcendence of women's friendships. As luck would have it, I found a video of her reading it aloud and had to share {hanky warning--but it's worth the 5 minutes}:

I can't help but think of my grandmother and her 8 sisters, my mom and her 4 sisters, my mom and her long-standing group of friends who have seen each other through...well...everything.

I, too, have one of those milestone birthdays coming up this year.  I have been lucky to have some really incredible women to call dear friends.  But I've moved a lot.  And so have my friends.  I have to admit I've felt a little forlorn and lonely lately, since most of those close friendships--formed in my own growing up years, or at the playground, in play groups and babysitting groups with my children--are now far away.  

Somehow I find myself in this other, "middle place" where the demographics of my neighborhood, church congregation, and school make me the outsider, the other.  I'm at an awkward age for new friendships, like a 14-year-old in kindergarten.  I'm not young enough to be included and invited on the get-togethers with the young moms or grad students (and I realize they consider me practically ancient, with a 15-year-old and all) and most of the women my age in town have lived here forever and already have their go-to people long established, including extended family, those luckies.

So I'm left with a long Christmas card list of long-distance-yet-close connections, people who would step in, give me a hug, recommend a doctor/hairstylist/parenting tip, watch my kids, and vice versa, if only we lived closer.  These relationships transcend distance, except when they don't. When I just want to go to a movie with a girl friend who really gets me.  

So this is for the group of women who don't even know each other--my posse of lifelong "Pigeons" who I'm sure would love each other if ever we got in one big room: 

Shelly~Debbie~Sue~JenA~Kelly~JenW~Trina~Christin~

JenJ~Deirdre~Christie~Jessica

{plus a few more iFriends whose friendships

 sustain me although we've never really met}

I would totally jump on a red-eye flight and fly anywhere for any one of you.  Looking at that list, I realize I really don't have anything to complain about.  I'm blessed to know each of you. But the world's on notice: I've got my eye out for some new Pigeons...come out, come out, wherever you are.

Comments

[jess]

oh, i sooo get this right now. we have moved 7 times in less than 4 years of our marriage and while i have been able to make friends in each place, sometimes i just long for those old friends that have been there through it all, no matter how far away they are. now being back to student life (yet much older than most students) i feel at a total loss for my place in this town. i guess somehow there is a reason for it all - maybe i should be focusing on what i have to offer rather as a friend than seeking out friendships to fill my empty pitcher? glad to know i'm not the only one in the "middle place."

[Anonymous]

You always verbalize what I'm feeling when I don't have the words/capability to do it. I totally get it and feel like I'm in the middle place. You made me tear up in the library reading your post. I don't dare watch the clip right now, I'm already weepy today and cried through lunch in public...
Jen

[Dayna]

beautifully put...i envie the "luckies" at times, too. i am only 5 years in to a long military journey with my husband=lots more moves and saying goodbye and hello to friends. part of it is exciting, but i long for permanence (is that a word?) sometimes. it makes me value true true friends all the more.

[Chiska]

Thanks for your beautiful blog. It's a place where I can come to lift my eye up a bit when I can't seem to get them off the ground. Thanks.

[Annemarie]

I just finished this book and absolutely loved it. Thanks for the video!

[the wrath of khandrea]

fair warning: saying "come out, come out wherever you are" sort of lends itself to images of a crazed jack nicholson weilding an ax.

i am in the same boat. too old for the student moms, too young for the older moms, and always moving away from the friends i have. why do you think i spend so much time on blogger??? i may read this book and have myself a good cry. thanks for the recommendation.

[tjhirst]

Thanks for connecting me with the author, the video and our thoughts. I, too, wonder if I still have a group of those friends for the same reasons you mentioned--middle age and distance from them. But as I reacquaint through the Internet and phone and occasional notes, I ache for the days when i did sit and talk with them in person, but I recognize what I learned moved me forward to extend that reach they gave to someone else.

[martha corinna]

Oh Annie, this is so beautiful.
I too have had to leave so many behind(or they've left me).
Even though I am so grateful for the women who I call friends in my area, I miss the people who know and understand me. I am in an awkward position myself. I am surrounded by 100 Mormon women. The one's who are my age have children who are older, thus making their lives different than mine. The one's who have children my children's age are young, and they aren't in the same place I am. It's a little bit lonely at times.
There is always the phone I suppose.

[Lindsay-ann]

Hi Annie
I enjoyed your friendship during 2008. It's great to have a friend who has kids going through the same as my daughter and who also love reading. Jessica gets her braces next week and was interested to see Sam's in a recent picture.
I hope we can stay in touch.
Lindsay

[Joanna]

OK OK OK I'll come out wherever I am! lol!! I hear you on this post. I am not young enough to be best friends with the young Moms....and yet I still feel so young. And the older Moms - hmmm I feel like I am one of the older Moms yet I'm only 36. Aaargh! Maybe one day I will take you up on a movie - we are rather close to each other you know!! A couple of weeks back the Stake primary presidency came to our ward conference and took over Primary for us - (it was such a nice break!) and I actually thought of you! I thought hey if she was still in Stake Primary I'd have met her today! Small small world :)

[Christie]

A, I miss you, too, my friend. You are my measure against all other friends. And I still have not found another Annie, nor will I ever. I wish we could go grab a movie and a hot chocolate tonight and rehash life. You are the best.

Thanks for sharing this. I MUST read that book.

[ellen]

Let's do lunch or dinner soon in one of our towns! It will be nice to re-connect.

[Holly]

Your friends are lucky!

I am waiting for my turn with The Middle Place, there are a few people ahead of me on the hold list at the library--I'm eager to read it.