I never thought much about having friends, actually. I’ve always had lots of friends, or at least I thought so. When I was in school, I always had a large circle of friends, mostly because people thought I was funny and I was outgoing. When I got older and started working, I had a big circle of friends that I would do things with outside of the workplace. When I had Dana, I had a big group of other new Moms (many of whom I am still friends with 37 years later). I was actively involved in Dana’s school life and became friends with many parents of her friends and knew all my neighbors in my Brooklyn neighborhood. When I would walk down the street in Park Slope, I would wind up stopping so many times because I would run into people I knew (much to Dana’s frustration) It was always me that organized getting together. I was a collector of friends and liked doing things with them.

Let’s fast forward to the present where I am on the cusp of turning 69 years old. So much has happened. When I relocated to Pittsburgh in 2011, there was a group of family and old friends who were happy I was back. There was a honeymoon period. I learned quickly that the family members here in Pittsburgh don’t like each other very much. Despite my best efforts, some stopped associating with me because I associated with the ones they didn’t like. The other friends that I already had here were nice and invited us to things, but because we were starting a business, we weren’t always able to participate since we work every weekend. After a while, just a few people still reached out because we weren’t on the same schedule. It’s became Joe & I working all the time.

Here’s the thing I’ve learned over the last 18 years since moving from a place that was beloved to me to returning to a place I left when I was 24 years old. Besides the obvious lesson of you can’t go home again, the lesson is that life goes on without you. There’s no getting around that. Leaving a place where you had a core group of friends – they remember you in the beginning and you visit and call, but it’s always going to be out of sight out of mind. It’s human nature. They never miss you as much as you miss them. People forget you because you’re not in their everyday life and probably don’t mean anything bad, but they have their own lives. They may remember you fondly, but don’t make the effort or think to stay in touch – except maybe at the holidays or your birthday. I really do understand that people have things going on in their lives, but sometimes it just makes me so sad. I know that I’m a pretty sensitive person. Maybe too much so.

Then there’s the thing about coming back to your home town. All the people you were friends with have made other friends while you were away. You maybe saw them once a year when you came to visit. Now you’re here all the time – so where do you fit in? There’s my theory again, life went on without you, so, of course, these people have other things going on. You were in that once a year old friend slot, so you can’t just pick up and expect to be where you once were. I sometimes wonder if I moved back to New York, would I have the same situation? Probably. I guess most of the time you can’t just pick up where you left off.

So I find myself in the weird place of not knowing where I fit in. I can be stuck in a past that doesn’t exist anymore where my old friends probably still care about me, but they’re living their busy lives. And here at home, I have family and friends that have written me off because I work on a different schedule than they do. They always tell me about what’s happening with them (because I ask) but I can’t say anybody ever asks me about me or my business. It can be a lonely place to be.

Making new friends at my age isn’t always easy, but I’m going to try my best to find a new friend group.