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Wednesday, February 23, 2011

So happy to be Loopy

Do you have friends you've never met? People whom you've become acquainted with via an internet community or blog or Facebook? Do you refer to them as "my friends Sue and Jane," even though you've never once breathed the same air as Sue and Jane?

I sure do. My oldest group of friends I've never met is a group of women who all "hung out" together on the January/February/March 1997 expecting message board on Parent Soup on America Online. How ancient does that make us seem? There's a cattle rancher, a firefighter's wife, a hairstylist, a nurse practitioner, a teacher. There are quiet women and women who could take on a truck driver and win (Cindy-girl, I'm talking about you!).

I've known these women for nearly 15 years, yet I've only me two of them in person. But I can tell you how many children they have (ranges from 1 to 9), what celebrity crushes they have, what their husbands' names are. We've gone through pregnancies, miscarriages, teething, potty training, illness, death, graduations and other life events together. I'm sure menopause is around the corner.

When our babies turned 1 year old, Parent Soup tried to make us migrate to the "Wonderful Ones" board, but we wouldn't hear of it. (Oh to have those kind of troubles today.) So we started an e-mail loop. We just e-mailed back and forth and copied all 15 or 16 of us on every e-mail. For a while, we met in an online chat room on Tuesday nights. Then life got busy and the e-mails came less frequently. But we still stuck together.

We're about 7 or 8 strong still and, thanks to Facebook, have experienced a resurgence in our connection.Our "babies" are turning 14 and our conversation is less about the kids as it is about us. I hope someday to meet up in person with all of the Loopy Moms.

But if I don't? I'll still talk about my friends from California, New Hampshire, Florida, New Jersey, Texas, Illinois, Colorado and Hawaii.

Love you, Loopy Moms! You are all close to my heart.


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7 comments:

kimybeee said...

i am right there with you and you are my friend amy from indy! lol it is hard to explain to somebody that you read this blog and so and so said blah blah blah!

TerriG said...

That's really sweet that you keep in touch. My buddy calls her internet friends "imaginary friends" it is so adorable. I love it that we can connect with folks all around the world.

Shauna said...

Aww, this made me feel all warm and fuzzy as I've connected with other November 2010 moms online, and we are all pretty close. I've even had a chance to meet up with a few of them. I hope in 14 years we are still friends. :)

Shell said...

I absolutely call my friends from the internet friends- whether I've met them or not. There are some that I've known for about 6 years from an MSN group.

Eternal Lizdom said...

I have a group from my birth board on pregnancy.org and we just recently reconnected on Facebook. Some of us had been connected as friend on FB for a while but we finally started a private group on FB and are having a blast reconnecting!!

So... I totally get it!

Jessica McCoy said...

Aww! That's how I feel about all my blog frieds.

Nate's Mom said...

I love the internet for these kinds of friendships. You are "my friend Amy from the frog blog."

I am connected with my June A (due June 1-15, 2000) mommies, from babycenter.com. Our babies are turning 11 in June, or thereabouts. Our first baby came in March, way early and is doing great. I might have to borrow this and blog about them. We too have experienced a lot of life events together. We moved from babycenter and have had our own websites to chat and share photos ect for many years now. We have even had a couple of mommy weekends.

Sheri in CA