The Bat House

Three years ago, at the farmer’s market in our neighborhood, we bought a wooden bat house from a wrinkled, hunched over man with the hands of someone who had whittled his life away.

He had a talent for woodworking, sure. But it was his ability as a salesman that was the most impressive.

“How many bats does this hold?” I asked, inspecting one of the smaller houses.

“Forty, fifty, maybe,” he said with a hint of apathy.

“And does this work just like a bird house?” I asked.

“Hardly,” he laughed. “Birds are easy. Too easy. Bats require time, and patience.”

“How so?” I asked, oddly worried what this guy thought of me.

“Well, do you see bats flying around in your neighborhood at night?” he asked, flicking a toothpick.

“Yes. Sometimes.”

“Well, then you’ll have a shot. Take this home, hang it up high in a tree, and then forget all about it.”

“I don’t have to feed them?” I asked, racking my brain for bat knowledge.

“Nope,” he said. “Bats fend for themselves. But they ain’t just gonna flock to your house the minute you hang this up. They’ll come when they’re ready.”

“Which is when?” I asked.

“When it’s time.”

“Yeah, but like—“

“Three years. Minimum.”

So, there we were at the market, standing next to a man who was selling us a product that wouldn’t actually work for another three years. Either bats are ridiculously picky real estate investors, or this guy was a descendent of Don Draper.

Either way, we came home that day with a bat house, hung it on the tree just outside our living room window and decided that the wait, as it usually is, would be worth it.

Three years have passed since that day at the market when we were promised the possibility, of maybe, one day, potentially, having bats. But still, the house sits vacant.

Visitors in and out of our home over the years have asked about the strange looking house affixed to our large sycamore. And with great optimism, and dramatic hand gestures, I recount my interaction with the strangely magnetic and ambiguously rude bat house salesman. I even feel superior at the thought of me being someone who could patiently wait for anything, let alone bats.

But after three years, I started to wonder if they would ever get close.

A full bat house, it seemed, was as elusive a construct as work/life balance. Or a healthy body image.

Or, even more elusive: the female friendship.

During Spring Break I met up with my best friend Kate for a three-hour brunch. Though our conversation was effortless, nothing about us getting together was.

She lives three hours away, her husband—an ER doctor—has an erratic schedule, and she has two young children. My own schedule, which involves teaching on weeknights and a few weekends, isn’t easy to plan around. And I also have two young children who demand I feed them and care for them every single day. To schedule a time to meet Kate for brunch, in the same town—but without our husbands and children around distracting us—took nearly three months of planning.

Having met the first day of preschool, I credit the longevity of my friendship with Kate on the simple fact that we aren’t hard on each other. We don’t keep score or make each other feel badly when we’ve gone too long without connecting. We never even say phrases like, “It’s been so long! I never see you!”

Some of that is just because of our personalities; we aren’t naturally demanding of others. But the other part is that after preschool, Kate moved to a neighboring town. While we spent every single day of the summer, and most every weekend during the school year, together, we quickly learned how to have a friendship despite obstacles. Early on we established open and efficient communication. We learned not to be jealous of each other’s friends. And we made the most of our time together when we got it.

Maybe we had spent our entire childhood friendship preparing for our adult one.

Because an adult female friendship isn’t easy like a bird.

It’s tough, like a bat.

I assume most of that is just the phase of life I am in. Working hard at my career, raising two young children, gearing up for the Gilmore Girls reboot. I feel strapped for time and energy. And I find the part of my life that suffers the most is my female friendships.

Friendships become tougher in adulthood because we are no longer on a conveyer belt, simultaneously achieving and experiencing the same thing.

Growing up, my life experiences and my friend’s life experiences were only ever divided by a little bit of time. I remember how left out I felt when everyone got their period before I did. And then again when they all got their driver’s licenses before me.

Turns out, neither lived up to the hype.

But the staggering of experiences become even more startling in adulthood. One friend always finds themselves the first or last of their group of friends to get married, have babies, buy a house, go to grad school, get a tattoo, and/or get divorced. And it’s not that we as women need or want to experience the exact same things at the same time, but the truth is those experiences change the courses of our lives and the way our time and energy gets spent.

So, right now, I find it increasingly difficult to maintain my friendships at the level I’d like to. At the level I could before kids. Before the career. It has nothing to do with need or desire. And it has nothing to do with my actual friends—they are as lovely as they’ve always been. I just find that we all have different needs and commitments and energy levels.

Friendships are no longer carried out at slumber parties, or over late night phone conversations, or whispering in a dorm room so as not to wake the other roommates. Instead, they are now carried out in the few minutes at school drop off and pick up before we both rush our separate ways, the promise of happy hour shouted to each other across the parking lot.

Or it’s played out at a family affair where we get both our families together and we take sips of wine and giggle in between bursts of children crying or husbands politely joining in.

Or it’s played out over text messages. Whizzing back and forth in stolen moments while the water is rising to a boil or the kids are down for a nap.

And this is meaningful, sure. But it’s not nearly as satisfying as it was in my youth. Or am I nostalgic for something that was equally difficult then? I mean, come on, having girlfriends in junior high was for the birds.

I have expectations on myself as a friend. I want to be the best at it. I never want to let down a friend. And I’ve got expectations of what a friendship should be, how I want it to look. How I want our relationship to grow and evolve. And all those expectations are nowhere near what’s possible or achievable. At least not right now.

Kate assured me over Eggs Benedict that we are just in a phase of life. That friendships will circle back to the forefront one day soon. They won’t always flutter on the periphery of our lives. And until that time comes, we will continue to text back and forth searching for a time to enjoy our next get together.

A few days ago, a crew of workers speckled the top of our house repairing a hole in our roof. At the end of their long day, the supervisor came to deliver the bill. And some interesting news.

Apparently, when they started to pull back the shingles, a colony of bats came swirling wildly out of the hole they were there to repair.

He pointed dramatically up to the roof, his hands pantomiming the flurry of bats surrounding him. The location of the thrilling mass exodus was near the back of the house, very close to the sycamore tree. The hole in the roof, oddly enough, was just a few feet from the bat house.

Ah, so close.

For years I’d waited on those bats. Knowing they wouldn’t always flutter on the periphery, but wondering when they’d come closer.

But I kept reminding myself that it doesn’t matter if they aren’t quite where I want them to be.

What matters is that they are there.








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