My real-life imaginary friend

When I started homeschooling last fall, I started reading the blog of another homeschool mom in the area. She had invited homeschoolers to read her blog on a Yahoo! newsgroup I had joined.

At that time, I was entering my third trimester, and I discovered this woman, a mom of four, also was in her third trimester of pregnancy. I had been feeling desperately out of place in a world of 20-something pregnant women, and was relieved to figure out we were about the same age. When I found out her scheduled C-section was almost exactly one month before mine, it gave me a sense of comfort to read about someone's life that was so similar to mine.

So, I left a comment on her blog, something like this:

"Hello. You don't know me, but I'm your new best friend. Would you like to start meeting me for playdates and then maybe we could go for coffee and if that works out perhaps our families could vacation together. Oh, and do you like camping, because we really like camping, and since our babies are going to be only one month apart perhaps they could become best friends, too, and they could grow up together and then they could go to some kind of homeschool prom together and eventually get married, but I do need to warn you that as the mother of the bride I get to pick out my dress BEFORE YOU!"

OK. I didn't really write that. But I did write something mentioning our similarities, and she was nice enough to stop by my blog. Before long, we were starting to become imaginary blogging friends.

Many times, my husband would see me laughing at my computer and ask me what was up. "Oh, it's nothing... just that pregnant homeschool lady I don't know."

I could instantly relate to her insomnia during pregnancy, her demented nesting, her attempts at keeping the kids happy while feeling like a beached whale. I was excited to hear the news of her son's birth, and loved updates on his weight gain and milestones. I was even a teeny bit worried when she went on vacation without telling me and didn't update her blog for more than a week!

She learned things about me that even some of my non-blog-reading family members don't know because I tend to talk about strange things on my blog that I don't mention in real life. You know... stuff like my intimidation with my imaginary Wii personal trainer, my adventures in preschool and my struggles with wanting to feel successful.

We eventually figured out through our blogs that we have some mutual friends. Then, we learned we only live a few miles from each other. Eventually, we even became friends on Facebook, and you know what a HUGE step that is when you go from being mere blogging buddies to actual FACEBOOK friends!

Well, today, my imaginary friend posted on Facebook in her hilarious way that it would be "criminal" to stay inside today, one of the first 60-degree sunny days of the year. She was inviting everyone to an impromptu playdate at the park.

Well, hmmm. Maybe we should go?

I have to admit, I did have that momentary question of whether I was about to ruin a perfectly good imaginary friendship by meeting her in real life.

Who knows? She could turn out to be one of those homeschooling moms with tons of kids who is still having babies in her 40s and who is self-absorbed enough to actually write a blog about her life. Oh, wait... so just like me??

I told the kids to get ready to go to the park because we were going to meet some friends.

"But who mom?"

"Oh, it's just a friend of mine who I've never met. Someone from my blog."

The funny thing is, they have heard so much about my blog friends that they didn't even seem to think that statement was really that strange.

It was really fun to meet my imaginary friend in real life, and I don't think I scared her too much. In fact, I think she even gets my sarcastic sense of humor enough to read an entire blog post about our pretend friendship and laugh about it.

I'm so glad we got to meet! Oh, and don't forget to Facebook me next time you're heading to the park!



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