I was talking to a R this week and somewhere during the conversation I just thought off how long I had known her…..and it was a whopping 24 years that we had been friends… That thought triggered two reactions….
Really…Have I grown that old …and
Wow, I know her almost as long as I can remember…The only people who have known me for longer are my parents and my brother…
While some friendships sustain themselves through years (Touchwood and Hugs to you R), that brings me to writing about some that sadly don’t….
Sometimes it takes just a few conversations or a few weeks for someone to become one of your best friends. Some people endear themselves to you the moment you meet them.. Some friendships grow through knowing and understanding a person with time. Some have even come about when I read their blogs and saw a side to that person I dint realize existed.
And then….
Sometimes with time and distance, things change drastically and for no particular reason. You see yourself drifting farther away and suddenly he/she feels a lot different from the friend you had known... You hesitate to call that person, you used to pour out your thoughts to, who would be the first one to know you’re excited or sad about anything, who you wait to call and talk to, whose phone number and bday you can never quite forget ….And eventually that feels quite normal. You have a new friend who has stepped into those shoes and life goes on…
Why do some relationships change….What can make friends un-friend themselves…And when distance and time was all that was needed to change the chemistry, why do I miss that friend ?
Friends are a part of your memories of your childhood, your teens and your adult life….When we look back on the memories, it feels incomplete if that the face that smiled once in it, doesn’t smile anymore. Sometimes it feels weird to the point that you try to block off the memory of that period.
I don’t think friendships die. I don’t think we can suddenly stop caring about someone we cared about. And a friendship can’t reduce to nothingness for no reason. When our lives can get as different as they do, with some people you always know that they are really just a call away and you can pick up your conversation right where you left even if was a couple of years back.
With some there’s a lot more effort needed to sustain a friendship and with time I have realized, it is not something one can accomplish alone. It needs two minds to work together on getting back. When one individual doesn’t quite share the same memory you have cherished, it becomes difficult and next to impossible to get the weirdness out of the system. And eventually you have to move on to say..”That stranger is an old friend”…..
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