You Know That Movie "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"? I'm Jack Nicholson.

I have reached the corners of all patheticness. Is that a new word? Patheticness? Regardless, it fits.

The problem with being a career person turned stay-at-home-mom is you lose your friends. When you work you have friends that work with you. And what do you talk about? Work. And if your friends aren't colleagues, then they are other kidless professionals that you picked up here or there. What do you talk about? Work. What is your life consumed with? Work.

Then, you become the SAHM. It all seems glamourous to your working kidless friends. You stay at home, go to the zoo, have playdates, and lunches with no time limits. Ahh, yes, the naive opinions of being a SAHM to those that neither stay at home nor have children.

When you make this decision your friends agree you'll keep in touch. But your once best friends in the whole wide world no longer have anything in common with you. Oh, they are happy for you that your life has taken on this all too unfamiliar path. And they intend to keep in touch with you. And they do. At first. But what was once a daily friendship turns into a weekly, then biweekly, then monthly, then the occassional Christmas Card friendship until you realize they've moved and you don't have their forwarding address.

So, here I sit. I realized on New Year's Eve that I literally hadn't been out of the house since December 10th. This from someone who traveled and was rarely in one city for a week, who had something to do or somewhere to go every weekend. Who volunteered at the church, who couldn't say "no", whose phone rang off the hook. So, I forced hubby to take me and the little one out to dinner. He suggested I find friends.

Have you ever been single and wanted to be married really bad? You know that despearate feeling? If you haven't been there certainly you've known someone who has. Well, that's me. And I have that same desperate look on my face that makes everyone run when they see me. Except I'm not looking for a husband. I want a/some friends.

Finding other SAHM's seems to be harder than I would expect. And the ones I have found already have friends and seem to be content with those. If I see another SAHM I look desperately in her eyes like a little kid, and my eyes scream "Will you be my friend?", which, by the way, is a real turnoff.

So, here I sit. Day after day. The only conversation I have is with 5 month old, and the occassional hour a day with my husband.

Keep the straight jacket handy.