She never realized it, how difficult it was to make friends as an adult. When you were a kid, all you had to do was look around, friends were everywhere. As an adult, how do you start?

            At work, she was the boss. To try to become friends with her employees seemed sad, and rather desperate (like Michael, she thought, nearly cringing). She never saw anyone at the apartment complex, except for maybe a few minutes out in the breezeway. She would go out to bars, only to have drunk guys hit on her all night.

            She needed to get out of the house, interact with others. Every morning she would walk in the park. She joined a yoga class at the local rec center. It was tough at first. A lot of times she didn’t even want to get out of the house. But slowly, she came to enjoy it, and it showed.

            After yoga one night, she went out for drinks with some of her Sally and a few other people. She found out that her and Sally were both from Connecticut (although Sally was from Hartford), Nicole also liked reading mysteries, and Erin had a daughter the same age as Karen’s niece.

            Slowly, her circle of friends grew. She knew whom she could count on when she had a flat tire (David), who was always up for a movie (Ashley), and who to call about American Idol (Brooke).

            Utica was slowly becoming home.