Do you pop?

Pop? Huh? WTF is she rambling about now?

Do you just pop in to visit people?

Personally, I love it when someone pops in to visit me. Well, as long as they don't expect a spotless house, but honestly, I adore the pop in. I don't care if you call or text first, or if you were just in the area, decided to drive on past, saw my car in the driveway so popped in. I love it all.

The irony of the situation is that I never do the pop in. I rarely invite myself places, its just not in my nature, I feel rude intruding without an invite, but then feel all left out when I know friends have caught up and not invited me. And wonder if I should have invited myself?

By the way, this is not coming from any event in particular. So, all my real life friends can relax, this is not a subtle dig at anyone. It's also not an attempt to make you feel like you have to invite me to everything you do.

Why do I even have this on my mind I hear you ask. Every year around this time I get all weird about friends. Don't ask me why, because I really don't know. I think its the whole, Christmas, New Years thing. By nature I am a social person. I like to talk (well, no shit says anyone who knows me IRL), in fact I often suffer severe verbal diarrhea. But I find myself, as I age, getting less and less social.

Part of it obviously is the kids. Unlike some, I don't have kids that cope well without sleep, they don't sleep just anywhere, and when they are tired they are feral to the max. So any social engagements need to be carefully planned around them.

Part of it is that I married a wonderful man, who is very shy and introverted. Seemed like a good idea at the time, he lets me talk all I want...lol.. but he doesn't enjoy being in big social settings where he doesn't know people. Actually, he doesn't enjoy being in small social settings either. He is a lovely guy, he is funny (he can be hilarious) and genuine, but he is shy and often that comes across as disinterest in those around him. So taking him out to somewhere I know he is going to be uncomfortable, just means that I'm going to be worried about how he is coping and not really enjoying myself. So I say no to lots of invites because I know it will make him feel uncomfortable. This is not an attack on him, its not his fault. He often tell me to go alone, and sometimes I do, but then I feel bad for leaving him home alone, or stuck with the kids and I don't have a good time anyway.

Part of it is my self consciousness about how I look. It just occurred to me the fatter I get, the less social I get. Interesting, *lock that gem away to be psychoanalysed at another time*.

The final part is fear. Fear that Adam and I are turning into his parents. Who are lovely people, don't get me wrong, but they are not social at all. For as long as I've known them (over 12 years), they have never had friends over or gone to visit friends. Sheesh, they only visit family at Christmas. They don't go out for dinner and they don't go to work functions. They don't actually have friends. And becoming that scares the bejeebus out of me.

So each year at this time I promise that I am going to become more social than the year before. And in 2009 I made some progress. I started music classes with the kids, we all love it. I started going to ABA and met some awesome people there, I even managed to find reasons to hang out with some of them outside of ABA. I have made an effort to catch up with a few old school friends, and always have a great time. But my mothers group that I loved so much has all but disbanded. I miss that, I miss it for me and I miss it for the kids.

This year we are starting swimming and tumble gym with the kids. I am looking forward to the kids getting out more as well as myself.

But I would really like to make the effort to have regular catch ups with friends. I'm an organiser, I love the idea that the first Monday night of every month i see friend 1, and the last weekend of the month we all go out with the friend 2 family, etc, etc. I crave spending time as a family with other families. While we have friends with kids similar age, we don't do stuff together. But I need it for me, I want it for my children and I think Adam would benefit too.

So to finish this post, I offer this to my friends... please feel free to pop in whenever you like. If I am here, you are welcome here. Please don't wait to be invited, I assume that you are busy having a life and if you wanted to play you would ask (while that's not something I do myself, hypocrite right), if you, like me, crave time with others and would like to be my regular catch upin my life of schedule... let me know. Please save me from becoming my in-laws.