The power of online friendships

I'm not ashamed to say the majority of my friends are online. Many I've met and many I've known for years and years but still haven't been lucky enough to see in person. 15 years ago the internet barely existed for social networking purposes and instead we had to all make do with the old school method of writing a letter to a penpal. Writing a letter really shouldn't be considered old fashioned, but still. I remember my first ever pen pal, an American girl a few years older than me called Eva. We met on holiday in the mid 90s and vowed to stay in touch. And we did, for a few years, however the letters became further and further apart and eventually they just stopped. I always wonder what happened to Eva, my first ever pen friend, did she ever think of me? Would we ever meet again? I didn't dwell for long and soon I made more friends online, via the new craze of yahoo user groups. With our mutual love of a certain ITV show involving firefighters, we started chatting and began an internet/penpal friendship-funnily enough we still talk now and sometimes keep in touch, 14 years on. 

As the years went by and my interests changed, I made new friends online all the time. Online friendships were great for a teenager like me, so shy and so insecure. I could hid behind my computer screen and pretend to be outgoing and confident. I still sometimes feel like that now, at the grand age of 27. People found me funny, they actually liked me. I hadn't felt that feeling for a long time. I was lucky enough that these friendships turned into more and by the the age of 18, we met so regularly it felt like they were close by, even though physically we were in different parts of the country. These friendships, formed online and by a mutual love of someone, were sometimes mocked for not being real. But how can that be? We shared tears, laughs, sad times, happy times. We felt so comfortable in eachothers company. They were real friends to me. And just like friendships you don't make online, you drift apart as life takes you in different places, but you still often think of them. They still had an important place in your life and mean something to you.

Around January 2013, just after I found out I was pregnant, I joined a facebook group for mums due in September 2013. Initially I didn't think much of it, I wanted to be in the background and be quiet and I simply just liked to browse. Occasionally I would put up a post moaning about swollen feet but that was it. Around this time last year however, I put myself out there and decided to talk more to people. It turned out the be one of the best things I ever did. These women, around a group of 100 or so, have become my lifelong friends. We shared the latter part of our pregnancies together, many painful and stressful moments were brought to the surface but we helped eachother through. I felt, and still always do feel, that people care about me and Tilly. As time went on and I gave birth to Tilly, we all shared our precious and most stressful newborn moments.

 Pictures, so many beautiful pictures were shared and I felt like, for the first time ever, I truely belonged. During the early days of motherhood, I felt so down and scared. However thanks to these women, I never felt alone. Any time of day or night, there was something there to say "everything will be okay" and that is what is so special about this group. Now, with our babies about to turn one, we are closer than ever. I can truely count these woman amongst my close friends, I know that I will never be let down and that I will always have someone I can turn to or share a difficult moment with. These friendships have even progressed and I've met some in "real life!" At the start of May, some beautiful ladies organised a hen day for me and two of them even came to my wedding. If that is not true, genuine friendship then I don't know what is. 

I hope each and every one of you know how much you mean to me and how grateful I am to have you all in our lives. I know in my heart that we will always be in our special September mummies bubble and that makes me so happy. I love you all like family. So here is to the power of online friendships....you rock. Xoxo