Social Sea Wife

Not wanting to admit how long it's been since I wrote, I won't number the months, but it's been quite a long time. Time enough to have a second baby, renovate the kitchen and to look ahead towards What The Heck We Will Do Next. Time for the excitement of a new home and the terror of new parenthood to calm enough that we can begin to look ahead to the next step in our lives. The next leg of our voyage.


The social life of a Sea Wife is a bit complex. When he is home the social gatherings are squeezed in between other necessary things like his training and studying, home maintenance and of course spending time with me and the children. There are all sorts of family gatherings; BBQ's (or cookouts, you might call them), birthday dinners, graduation parties and whatnot. We attend together and juggle the children and pass them around to various aunties and uncles. Friend gatherings are less frequent partly because of limited time and family coming first but also partly due not having found a regular way to socialize as a family with young children. When he is at sea it's the friend gatherings that I crave and that only rarely happen. And so, I feel a bit lonely.


There are all sorts of excuses for why I don't engage more with our friends, the top two of those excuses are a Two Year Old and a Six-Month Old. But I'm trying to turn over a new leaf, drop the excuses, call the baby sitter and go out for a night with the girls, send out a text for a cook-out invite. So what if the house is not in perfect order. Forget trying to cook a perfect meal, I'll tell guests to bring a dish to share and I'll throw together a salad. If the kids are having a rough night, well the guests will have to understand, and will probably take pity on me and do a few dishes. Too often I put off socializing with friends for "...when he is home to help." No more! Socialize or bust! Besides, I have a new kitchen to share!


Sea Husband and I often spend time dreaming of being somewhere "else". A different house, a smaller town, closer to these friends or further from those family members. If I could redirect that effort spent dreaming of greener pastures, and point that effort towards socializing, perhaps I would find that where we are is a wonderful place after all.