cotton candy is for clowns and five-year-olds and...heck, it's for everyone

So I've been thinking...I have friends who are married right now. I have friends who are married and pregnant. I have friends who are single. Everybody is in a different stage in their life and honestly, how do all of those relationships make sense to me, the married gal with no kids? It's something I've been pondering recently.

The married folk are getting to know their respective others; they're doing the couples thing and saving up for stuff like new couches and paying off loans. The single people are going on interesting, exotic vacations; figuring out where they want to go next in the world. Those expecting are cooing over babies and and taking it to the second step while the rest of us watch, slightly awed.

How does one reconcile these three worlds? Honestly, it's a question I've asked myself more than once. I'm married. I'm not at the baby phase quite yet, but I'm experiencing those nagging feelings - touching a wee cream gown at Baby Gap; taking in the sweet, dusky scent of my niece; wanting to nickname my dad Vukas (the Lithuanian version of "Grandpa") sometime in the next year or so. But at the same time, I find myself lingering in the honeymoon phase that is our two-person family: relishing a Saturday morning in bed. Enjoying the calm, sweet silence of an apartment embodied only by two humans and a couple of cats. This often leaves me a tad bit confused. Where do I fit in? HOW do I fit in?

Although this will sound cliched, everyone is on a unique, wonderful journey of her own. And I'm on mine. So we forge ahead, finding those people that click with us, that complement our own, sometimes crazy journeys. And we befriend these people, whatever stage of life they're in. I know some truly superb people that I am privileged to call friends.

We need friends in all walks of life. Those who are married. Those single folks. The parents with kiddos. And older people. I hang out with teenagers who carry shiny plastic wallets shaped like hamburgers, flirt in a fashion that oddly reminds me of an eight-year-old, yet philosophize like they're eighty. I belong to a writing club with a few wonderful folk who are in their forties, fifties, and yes, possibly in their sixties. If I hang out with only people who are JUST like me, well, I'm not going to be very well-rounded. So it makes sense to be friends with people from all walks of life. And if I don't quite fit into the same circle that they're in at the moment, well, that's okay too.