By Jillian Stacia
@jillianstacia

“Hi! My name is Everett. Want to be friends?”

The first time I heard my 3-year-old utter those words on the playground, I almost choked on my coffee. 

At first, I felt my heart practically burst with pride. Look at that sweet, brave little boy! Is it really possible that he’s mine? 

And then—mere seconds later—my stomach lurched with fear. What would the other kid do in response? Would he laugh at my son and then walk away? Would he say something mean? 

I held my breath and waited, but the answer came quickly:

“Sure!” the boy said with delight.

Off they went. Two new friends racing down the slides together. It was simple. And terrifying.

***

The truth is, it has taken me a long time to be as brave as Everett when it comes to making friends. 

I have never been truly comfortable or confident in new social situations. I am either painfully quiet or I never stop talking. My face turns red and splotchy. I sweat a lot. I make way too many awkward jokes. Large groups of girls make me squirm. Sororities make me break out in hives. Don’t get me started on the bachelorette parties with the matching shirts. 

Luckily, I have a large and overly-involved family that lives just down the road, friends that I’ve grown up with, and a husband that makes me laugh every day. I’ve been fortunate enough to have people in my metaphorical—and sometimes literal—corner. But when I had children, I realized that no one in my network was in the exact same life stage as me. No one was a new mom. While people could relate and support me in different ways, I ached for friendships who could walk through this specific season of motherhood alongside me. I wanted someone who knew what The 5 S’s meant, someone who had an opinion on baby-wearing and swaddle styles. Someone who didn’t just acknowledge how tired I was—but who actually felt the same level of exhaustion deep in her bones.  

Looking back, I wonder if my preference for deep connections shaped my friendship history or if that was just a convenient cover story. Maybe all this time I have just been scared of putting myself out there, of having my most vulnerable self be ridiculed. I tried to keep myself safe by keeping my messy parts hidden, but maybe others would have related to my imperfections. Maybe my fear of rejection and not being cool enough hadn’t protected me at all. Maybe all it did was stop me from experiencing the sanctuary of friendship. 

***

I shouldn’t have been surprised by my son’s bold moment on the playground. Everett had been interested in making new friends for a while now, and the playground has always been his preferred social training ground. 

When he first took an interest in other kids, he would watch them from afar, observing their every move from a safe distance like the world’s smallest anthropologist. 

Eventually, he moved into a phase where he would run up to another kid, stand too close, tap them lightly on the chest, and then sprint away. This was his very poor attempt at playing tag. Surprisingly enough, sometimes it would actually work, and he’d spend the rest of the time chasing his new “friend” around the playground. But most of the time, the other kid was scared—a normal reaction when someone races towards you and then runs away laughing.

“If you want to play with someone, just introduce yourself,” I would say. “Ask them if they want to be friends.”

Even as I said this, I was skeptical. I mean, sure, this is what we say to our kids. This was the appropriate advice to dish out. But it couldn’t possibly be that easy. After all, it had never been that way for me.

***

I decided to join a mom’s group.

They say parenting takes a village, and I didn’t have one. At least not during the day when my friends were doing luxurious things like showering, putting on heels, and heading to the office. I was all alone with my toddler doing the daily grind of quartering grapes, reading Goodnight Moon, and chomping on an obscene amount of TUMS to ward off my pregnancy heartburn. My loneliness and ever-growing need for social interaction started to outweigh my desire to avoid rejection. I had to put myself out there if I was ever going to find a community. 

I liked the group right away. Everyone was friendly and welcoming. They wore leggings and served coffee.  And they had children! They knew what it was like to exist on three hours of non-consecutive sleep. They could offer advice on breastfeeding and sleep training and what to do when your toddler keeps trying to take his diaper off in public. They even drove mini-vans! They were fellow moms deep in the trenches of young motherhood. Finally, I was around people who got it.

But it wasn’t easy to make the deep connections I craved. For the first few months, I attended events feeling like a turtle without its shell––strangely exposed and vulnerable, all while trying to keep one—and then two—children from sprinting into the street or crying hysterically because we ran out of snacks.  It was hard to form real relationships—heck, it was hard to have actual conversations.  

Between diaper changes, unexpected spit up, and breaking up toddler wrestling matches, I struggled to get a word in edgewise, let alone talk about feeling lonely or unfulfilled. 

As it turns out, joining the group and attending events was the easy part. The hard part was being brave enough to take the relationship to the next level.

In every potential friendship, someone has to initiate. Someone has to be the one to propel the relationship forward. Someone has to be vulnerable enough to put themselves out there. Someone has to ask, “Want to be friends?”

For a long time, I could not—would not—be that person, mainly because it was too scary. The cost of rejection was too high. I felt like if I got denied, I would not recover. It was easier to be alone than be disliked.

Thankfully, I now had people in my life who were brave enough to go first and take that chance with me. There was the new friend who invited me to dinner or asked me to bring the kids over after naptime. There was the unexpected coffee left on my porch after a particularly rough night and a home cooked meal after a death in the family. These new connections quickly became a lifeline, a way to survive a particularly difficult season. 

For the first time, I was able to see how friendships were built. One text at a time. One check-in. One hangout on top of another. It didn’t have to be that complicated, but it did take a level of vulnerability to initiate the conversation. To start the plans. To show up in stained leggings and dirty unwashed hair. To follow up afterward. 

This is how it works, I thought. This is how friendship actually happens. 

***

My kids are running around with new friends at the playground. I am almost to the coveted stage of parenting, the one I call “The Bench Phase”, where I can finally take a seat at the playground instead of hovering in the distance, ready to rescue a nervous two-year-old from the top of the slide.

A mom I’ve never met before stands across from me, watching her son play with mine. I take a deep breath and walk over.

“Hi, my name is Jillian. Is that your son? He’s so cute!” It’s a little more subtle than his “want to be friends” line, but I know Everett would be proud regardless. 

Guest essay written by Jillian Stacia. Jillian wants to live in a world where the coffee is bottomless and the sweatpants are mandatory. As a part-time writer and full-time mama, she spends her days corralling words on the page and toddlers in the house. When she's not writing, reading, or snuggling her babies, Jillian loves spending time outside and cheering on the Baltimore Ravens.