Sweet and snarky. LOL. Gift from a friend.<3

After twenty-six years of cultivating and growing a community of friends, how do you just leave that? My network of buddies could help me with anything, a Rolodex of advisers and fixers. Without our boys, or a dog, or PTA, how do we start over? That’s a question I asked of a couple of friends in a similar situation. They both said we’ll be fine. And we are, but….

Before we left, I stayed in the moment and enjoyed all my friendships. It was exhausting, but I knew it would be a while before I’d see them again. Some very good times were had every night before we left, partying like a rock star. We had dinner with neighbors, after-pickleball drinks, and a lot more drinks. DANG! In those moments, we all said, “Why didn’t we do this sooner?” There’s a life lesson in there:  Don’t wait for a reason to have a gathering, just do it.

I’ll never forget that one night…

Hubby has a small group of cycling buds that were really hard to leave. It was tough for me to see him leaving them. One of his friends helped us pack up our bikes into hard cases to keep them safe on their cross-country trek without us. When Hubby hugged that guy goodbye,

Thank god! I couldn’t do this.

Best buds.

it was all I could do to stop a sob from spilling out of me. I only got weepy twice and it was over leaving Hubby’s friends and the last time I saw our part-time kitty-cat, OJ. Not that I wasn’t boohooing over the loss of my friends too, but I chose to block the Debbie Downer thoughts or I wouldn’t enjoy the good times. Eyes forward.

Need a cat pic. Precious!

Now that we’re here, we’re hitting the ground running. My plan was to plaster myself all over everywhere, mainly pickleball. Hubby joined a cycling group. We knew before moving here, Cary has a ton of cycling and pickleball, like a lot, a lot, a lot. A LOT!

I started with a pickleball class because I figured I’d make at least one friend and get the skinny on the pickleball scene. My very first friend in the group, totally understood my situation and recommended a meetup app. I’ve met a ton of people and love it! I play four times a week. The people are welcoming and mostly from somewhere else, like me. We got an invite to a “cookout” that hasn’t happened yet, but wow, an almost on the social calendar!

Hubby joined a couple of club rides. The level of interest is insane compared to Lamorinda. On a Tuesday, at 6:30 pm there could be 70 riders. On. A. Tuesday.  Saturdays are the same. Weekend rides start and stop at a brewery so beers can close out the day. In the first seven weeks, I drove Hubby to his ride, then headed over to pickleball.  I met him afterward for the fun part, a beer We loved this schedule. I got to know his friends and local beer. I haven’t started riding yet as my vision was on the fritz and fixed now, but that’s a whole other story.

In our new neighborhood, I will be living four doors down from one of my new pickleball friends. The planets were aligned, as this was just by chance, or was it? She introduced me via text to another neighbor that was more than happy to go on a walk around our HOA community because HOAs are a thing here. Along the way, we ran into another neighbor watering her lawn with one of those rainbow sprinklers because automatic sprinklers are not a thing here as it rains in the summertime. Shock! The two set a date for an end-of-summer party. I have a social calendar! My new buddy is working on setting up an empty-nester group too.  The subdivision is small so it makes it easier to coordinate events.

People are friendly here! I cannot emphasize that enough. We’ve had two nights where we chatted up with strangers at the bar and had a blast. I explained to one of my native North Carolina pickleball pals how this would never happen, or rarely, in Cali. Her response:

“I don’t know any strangers.” Mic drop.

We love CARY!