A couple of years ago, DH and I moved to the other side of the country from the cities we grew up in and the city we went to university in (all of which are close to each other) for work. All of our friends (nearly all 'individual' friendships rather than groups) live within an hour radius of each of the cities (so no central location) but we managed to keep in touch with everyone well, partly because people were keen to visit us (touristy location) and partly because we moved on to remote jobs and so were able to spend prolonged periods of time staying with either set of our parents and visiting everyone. Through this, all our close friends have remained very close.
We always had a vague plan to return up to our home area but this was postponed when I fell pregnant with a now nearly 1 year old. I know it was obvious that with friends living far away and a new baby our friendships would suffer but I'm surprised at how much it hurts. We do still go 'home' but the visits are far less frequent and more difficult. I don't think our friends truly realise how difficult long journeys with a baby are, and often also expect us to travel on from our parents to see them at their own homes. Some friends are still very keen to come and stay and very happy to take on the burden of the travelling down to us. However, with this and having relatives to stay we seem to be constantly hosting. We've had maybe 2 weekends with no one staying since the new year! It is a lot. On the flip side, some friends I now barely see. This includes my two 'best' friends, which I feel really sad about. They're both pretty disorganised, very used to me visiting them and pretty bad at even managing phone calls. We get on fabulously when together but recently I always feel (probably unfairly) a little sad and disappointed with them.
Overall, it is becoming really clear that if we stay where we are (which is a better decision lifestyle-wise for our baby) we can't keep up these friendships (or certainly as they were). Some are obviously drifting anyway and even the ones who do want to stay in touch are becoming harder time-wise to manage. I know this is just life and we chose to move away but I feel really sad about it and like I'll never make new friends as good again. We do have friends here but the pre-baby ones have a very different lifestyle and we manage to see them far less and my new mum friends, whilst lovely, are all incredibly busy and have close friends of their own from pre-pregnancy.
I'm really worried I'm destined to be lonely and am feeling very sorry for myself! Friendships have always been so important to me and I'm finding this really hard. Has anyone got any words of wisdom?