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"I got home from work and picking up the kids yesterday, and as usual, I headed for the mailbox to grab the latest stack of bills and catalogues full of stuff I can&amp;#039;t afford to buy. Then I saw it \u2013 a bright blue envelope. One of my friends had sent me a card. No, it&amp;#039;s not my birthday quite yet. It was a &amp;quot;just because&amp;quot; card, and it meant the world to me. Especially since, for some reason, I&amp;#039;ve had a really hard time lately reaching out to friends. You have to understand, first of all, that I&amp;#039;m not a &amp;quot;hanging with my girlfriends&amp;quot; kind of girl. I&amp;#039;ve never watched &amp;quot;Sex in the City&amp;quot;, I don&amp;#039;t spend hours on the phone talking to my BFF, I don&amp;#039;t go out on shopping trips or over for coffee, and I very rarely attend a &amp;quot;girl&amp;#039;s night out&amp;quot;. It&amp;#039;s not that I&amp;#039;m antisocial, I&amp;#039;m just a homebody and I didn&amp;#039;t grow up with sisters. All of my girlfriends were met in the workplace, or online, or they&amp;#039;re neighbors, and we interact here and there but not with a lot of regularity. I always feel like I&amp;#039;m intruding on somebody&amp;#039;s life when I reach out \u2013 like they&amp;#039;re probably busy and I&amp;#039;m interrupting with my call or by stopping over. I know, I know. I&amp;#039;m projecting my insecurity with that, but that&amp;#039;s how it is for me. I read a great article today about &amp;quot;Helping Your Friends Help You Through Divorce&amp;quot; \u2013 there&amp;#039;s a lot of great info in there, and as the author suggests, you could literally print it out for or email it to your friends. There are some terrific pointers about reconnecting and recharging through the support only a friend can give. I saw myself all over the place in this one. I think I need to start sending out more &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m receptive&amp;quot; signals. I need to pick up the phone more. I need to stop by &amp;quot;to return your daughter&amp;#039;s sweater and end up talking for forty-five minutes&amp;quot; more. What&amp;#039;s the old saying \u2013 you have to be a friend to make a friend. I&amp;#039;ve been cooping up like a hermit on my kid-free weekends, and when the kids are around, I&amp;#039;ve been so immersed in them, I&amp;#039;m not seeing much else. Time to broaden my horizons and start being more open to the friends I know I have. Did you find yourself becoming a bit of a recluse in this process? How did you break out of it? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/relationships/dating-marriage/a46341/unhappy-hermit-259/>