Friendships

I envy Paulo's ability to enter a group of people and instantly make friends.  I saw it last week during his first soccer practice.  A lot of the kids, and Moms, knew each other.  But did that intimidate my son?  Not in the least.  He went right in and acted as if he'd known them for years.  As we were leaving the park he starts yelling "BYE IAN!  My name is PAULO!"  I had to shush him a little since the park is right next to apartments and I felt bad about my kid yelling a top of his lungs to his team mate.  But I loved how happy he was to make a new friend and how he wanted to be sure that friend knew his name.

Again yesterday I saw it.  Paulo and I were shuttle drivers for Dimitri and three of his soccer team mates to a game across town.  The game was at an elementary school-score for a playground!  There was a little girl there who had a brother on the opposite team.  Those two played the entire 90 minute game together.  Just laughing, talking, chasing, playing as if they had known each other their whole lives. 

He has the gift of easy friendships.  I think that's true for a lot of children though.  As we age we start to get self conscious about striking up conversations, at least I do.  I spent last week's soccer practice in silence.  There were two clumps of Moms chatting but I didn't know them and didn't feel as confident in my abilities to make new friends as my son.  So I stayed quiet and watched practice.  I'm sure as the season goes on I will start to chat but I don't see any deep meaningful friendships coming out of the group.

This is why I'm grateful for the friendships I do have though.  We had the pleasure of lunching with two dear, dear friends that we have not seen in a long time last Sunday.  It was as if no time had passed.  There was not a moment of awkwardness, the conversation flowed, the hugs were tight, the laughter in abundant supply.  I think as we age we get fewer, but higher quality, friendships.  And they are really so important.  They enrich our lives in ways work and family simply cannot.  We need to nurture them though and, I suppose, we need to remain open to new people coming into our lives even people we meet watching soccer practice of a group of rowdy 1st grade boys.