Oh Baby!

How I React When People I Grew Up With Have Children.

I was walking through Target Sunday with my little sister when I saw a girl I had gone to school with 5-12th grade. We had been in choir together, I had gone to slumber parties at her house, we had Government and Economics together we had even gone to prom together where our Limo stalled out a block from the museum it was held at as we left. I haven't really seen her for the last two years. Her parents and mine live in the same neighborhood, but I moved out as soon as I graduated. Her plan, last I heard was to graduate and move in with her boyfriend. I don't know if that happened, or if they made it.

The reason all of this is important is because she now has a week old baby boy. It took a second for it to all register when I first saw her with her mother. She looked a little heavier than usual, but basically the same, and her mom was carrying a baby. I was trying to figure out if her mother was still young enough to have kids as they approached after I said "Hi," when my friend took the baby from her mother, said, "This is my son," and her mother followed it with a very sarcastic "Surprise!" as if she were still struggling with it.

I didn't even say congratulations. I wish that I had, after all she's probably having a hard enough time with what's going on, I was just so surprised, she's a little bit younger than I am, so if it were me I would have had a child a month ago. Plus, she was always the good one. Never drank, never smoked, seemed to be responsible. I guess she's proving that she is responsible now. I just never expected it. It was so surprising that my sister, who's 15 and grew up with my friend's little sister cursed as we walked away, something I have only heard her do when she has injured herself. Even worse, my little sister, huddle leader of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes said "Holy Shit, she has a baby now," as we walked away from my friend.

Just remembering how we walked away makes me think how lonely she must be. We must be the illustration of every friend in her life, everything she ever thought she'd do, just turning around and going the other direction.

I want to send her a card with my belated congratulations, offer to baby-sit, whatever. I'd hate for her to be isolated like I feel she must be. I think I just want to offer her reassurance that she can still have a normal life and have friends just like she used to, whether or not she's worried about it. It's not like I can tell her why I am doing this, we aren't very close, I just get very protective of my friends, and I don't want her to be unhappy.