One woman’s quest to find friends at 40

My 30^th birthday came and went without much fanfare. I was in the throes of motherhood with a one-year-old and a newborn. Other than an elaborate dinner with my husband, celebration was out of the question. I was busy and not yet aware that besides lacking sleep, I was lacking friendship. After all, I had my husband. 

“Who’s your best friend?” my children would ask me when they learned to talk.

“Daddy,” I’d say proudly, truly proud to call my husband my best friend. I loved the way it sounded. To my ears, it made me seem better than those women who didn’t consider their husband their best friends. I believed I needed no more than my husband to fill me up emotionally. I believed that he was my true “BFF” and that he understood me as no female ever had. 

“No!” they’d scream. “Daddy is your husband, who’s your best friend?”

My children asked me this question over and over through the years, ad nauseam as children do. Then, over time, the answer, the realization, crept into my consciousness: I didn’t have one. I didn’t have a true best friend. I had abandoned woman-kind. 

I had let my friends down. I had, in actuality, been a bad friend. I used my dislike of the phone as an excuse for my limited capacity to follow up and follow through. I was a friend who remembered birthdays but forgot to send a card or make a call. I was a friend who failed to send condolence notes because I wasn’t sure what to write, when the words really didn’t matter. I was a friend who failed to bring dinner to a friend who really needed a homemade meal. 

The realization was hard to take. It actually took years to digest and felt a lot like acid reflux — painful and a recurring reminder of what I’d lost. But as with any kind of pain, you either live with the discomfort or do something to feel better. So, the night before my 40^th birthday, I made a resolution. I committed myself to finding friends and figuring out how to build them, keep them, and invest in them.

I went straight to my childhood friends to plead my case and discovered babies who had been born when I hadn’t even known of pregnancies; parents who had died when I hadn’t even known of illnesses; degrees that had been earned, jobs that had been lost, and moves that had been made. I got on the phone and got an earful. I got on the phone and promised to be there, in sickness and in health, in good times and bad, as long as we both shall live, and I meant it.

In the three years since my resolution I have fostered four fabulous friendships. Doesn’t sound like much, but it’s actually a lifetime for me — one from every decade of my life. I have many acquaintances, as I always did, but I have four friends (one from my childhood, one from my college years, one from early parenting and one from the present day) upon whom I can rely.  And I’m learning how to let my friends rely on me. Because they are so wonderful, because they are such good friends, they are willing to stand by me while I learn even if it means yelling at me because I have forgotten to call them back — again. I still hate the phone but I’ve learned to multi-task by bringing my cell on walks with the dog. I’ve also realized that even if I don’t feel like talking at the exact moment a friend has called, she might be the one who needs me. I’ve learned to text, which is a fast, easy way to stay in touch and of course, I’m madly in love with e-mail — a brilliant form of communication.

What I have found is that these friends, these four amazing women, fill an indescribable void that can’t be filled by my family. It’s a void children can’t fill because they are natural takers.  It’s a void a husband can’t fill because no matter how in touch he is with his “feminine side,” the fact is that men just don’t think, listen or talk like women. So, as I slide through the fourth decade of my life I see how I’ve come full circle, back to the comfort of my early estrogen nest. It’s a wonderful, comfortable place held together with love and companionship, understanding and commiseration. It lacks judgment and is overflowing with support. It’s a security net woven of women, by women and for women. 

Cari Shane Parven (42) is a former television reporter, based in Potomac, Maryland. Her perfect day would include a morning swim, a day of skiing (preferably in Montana) and an evening on her laptop writing about human behavior. Her dream as a child was to be like Jane Goodall sitting in the forest among the chimps or Margaret Mead observing the natives in Samoa. As a mother of three and wife to one, she can do neither. So instead, she blends into the culture around her and writes about what she sees. Her observations can be found in her two blogs, "Inside the Beltway and Under the Radar" and "Keepin' It Real."  

Excerpted from “Knowing Pains: Women on Love, Sex and Work in Our 40s,” edited by Molly Tracy Rosen. Text copyright (c) 2009 by Margaret Tracy Rosen, reprinted with permission from WingSpan Press. For more from the book, click here.

More from TODAY 5 things you didn’t know about Elin Nordegren TODAY Moms: Does parenting make you dumb? 14 fun and frugal gifts for this holiday season Makeover! Nuclear power plant worker gets hot   Celeb sightings: Madonna, Ed Norton and more

MORE FROM TODAY BOOKS: BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIRS

Brother West: ‘Being true to the funk of living’

Brother West: ‘Being true to the funk of living’ Andre Agassi: I have the body of an old man Former Miss California: I was smeared How dog poop led to love for Paula Deen After having 15 abortions, motherhood saved her Book excerpt: Testimony of an abortion addict Alan Thicke on raising kids who won’t hate you ‘Full House’ star writes about meth, coke binges Parents share diary of child’s cancer battle How America can get 'Smart on Crime'   Add Today Books: Biography/Memoirs headlines to your news reader: