Over the last year I’ve realised that my socialising has changed considerably, mainly because I am socialising, but also how I am socialising. This has got me thinking…

Although I have always had friends who are my peers, well you kind of have to don’t you, I always seemed to gravitate towards people who were older. I could never really explain why, but it was something that I did. When I was at school I was friends with people in older years, I always got on with older members of the congregation at church, when I started teaching I spent considerably time and built up relationships with people who had taught the husband when he was at the school.

Recently though I have been spending more time with my peers. I still have friends who are older, in fact my best friend E is older than me (which has caused raised eyebrows in the past), but I am spending more time with people who are my age. What has changed?

Me! Completely and utterly sub-consciously, I think I didn’t think that I fitted in. I couldn’t wear the same clothes as everyone else, I wasn’t always interested in the same things as everyone else, therefore it was easier to convince myself that I got on with older people. Then it got to the stage where I was married, but didn’t have children, everyone else did, I had nothing to say, so I’ll just talk to older people instead. Please don’t get me wrong, no one EVER made me feel that I didn’t fit in, and I don’t think I ever actually thought it myself but I convinced myself that I gravitated more towards my non peers.

I am now confident in who I am. I’m spending more time with my peers at work, it makes sense we’re in the same boat dealing with similar issues, we are a support for each other. With my uni friends, we just take the time to spend time together. I am still very grateful that I have built up those relationships with older people, and I have no issues at all with talking to them. Afterall, they have so much advice to give, which is why, I think I felt drawn to them before.

But I am glad that I have now found the confidence to climb the barrier I had raised for myself, and to be with my peers, with confidence in who I am, and the decisions I have made. I’m not sure I can say what it has bought to my life, but I know it has bought something.

For those friends reading this, I want to clarify again, it is nothing you have ever done. You have always loved me for who I am. It is completely and utterly me, and I can only apologise if I have not given as much to our relationships as I could have.