Portland III

 Portland III

Friends have always been an important part of my life and I owe that to my mom. She always pushed me to be as social as possible, while growing up I was only very sociable and friendly and I owe it all to my mom. She will always push me to get out of my comfort zone and make friends everywhere I could. Thanks to this I was able to fully understand what it means to have people in your life that feel like family but are not related to you by blood. Seeing my mom try to make new friends in Portland is very inspiring because it shows me that one is never too old to meet new people and that no matter what age you are you might just meet your best friend when you least expect it.

"Friends!!!! When we talk about friendship, I am in my comfort zone. I have been very lucky since I have few but good friends. The problem for me was to keep in touch with them maybe because my mother was overprotective of me. Although I still have friends from school, university, work, and from the neighborhoods I used to live in. I’m an introverted person but after a while, it is easy to meet some people and call them friends. I left my friends at home; we talk occasionally but it’s not the same.  Now, I’m here in Portland alone without friends looking to find a community and people to get close with.

I must find a community and friends. But guess what …. Isabella signed me in the Meetup app. She was like a little girl in Disney World who signed me in so many groups. Well, two of them were a group of professional women and another of hikers. They had two events the first week in October. It was Thursday, I had an event in a bar with the professional women's group. I thought that was an opportunity to meet some interesting women and start a community. I dressed up nicely; it was my first event in Town. Adam took me before his squash lesson, I arrived early, so I had to walk around the block for a while. At 6 pm I went in, and there were just two more girls beside me. They sat down at different tables than me; I was by myself at a small table. 

The host of the bar asked me if I would have a cocktail or wine and since the invitation said wine event, I asked for a white wine. I didn’t understand the dynamic of the event, I was new to these kinds of things. Five minutes later, some others came in just not women but also men. I guess something was going on and I didn’t know what it was. They hugged like they already knew each other, and I thought “Hmmm I am the new girl here probably they met at other events, OMG “. I told myself “Claudia out of the box, go to them and mingle “.  So, I stood up went to another table, said Hi to everybody, and sat. 

Everything was normal, they were asking me who I was, where I worked, what division I was, and what. Wait, Did I understand correctly? No, I think I heard bad. I started to tell them everything about me. After twenty minutes of chatting, this man asked me again “So, tell me again who are you” And in my mind, I was thinking again why? But Nicely I started to tell him all one more time. Then he went “Let me tell you who are we”. When I heard we all worked together in the energy company, I couldn’t believe it and said, “I’m in the wrong place at the wrong time”. At that moment Isa wrote to me “Mami are you ok? Are you having fun?” I looked at my phone and wrote please come to pick me up. Isabella was scared, so run off as fast as she could to pick me up.

After they explained the event to me, we all laughed, they were nice and told me to stay. They said trying to not make me feel bad, “To worry, enjoy the evening; “you may work with us “and I answered, “Thanks but I’m not an engineer, sorry”. And I left as quickly as my legs allowed me to do it. 

When I got to the car, I explained to Isabella about it. She laughed and enjoyed my story so much that she called my brother, my son, and her husband to tell it. What an experience, trying to build a community in another city but yours."

“I love people who are highly aware of their worth.”