Thoughts on friendship as we grow...
It is odd sometimes to run into someone that years ago was so important, so relevant to your every day life. Or not running into to them but seeing them online or hearing a friend mention them or running across their picture in a stack of old photos. Friendship is so weird. What makes two people click? How much of friendship is timing? I can think of many friends who were so special to me at one time and now I hardly know or don't know at all. I think this is just natural- a person can't keep up with 792 friendships so as seasons change, so do friendships. Sometimes they change into different types of friendship, and sometimes they just fade away. When friendships end, sometimes there is sadness... a quiet ache where you understand that times have changed for you and the person but you miss the closeness that was once there and know will never be again. Sometimes there isn't sadness but a release...as if you've been carrying something along that should have been dropped long ago. How do you know when it is time to let go? Who decides? It is interesting how my expectations of each person in my life vary, and how I relate to them varies as well. I would like to think I am a good friend but since each person's definition of that is different, and all of my friendships are so different, how could I really know that? As seasons change, and some friendships are let go while others are held on to, I just trust in the system. Friendship is never a given- it is something that is continually renewed and supported. When it is right for me and the other person, we renew- we support- we reach out- we hold on. And sometimes, it is just the way things work, we let go.