Most Friends Aren't Forever

I really do like friendships, and I do the best I can to make them and maintain them.  They add a certain something to life that's hard to describe, and the connections that we have with others with whom we get along well can be among the most pleasant parts of our lives.  Friends encourage us, not always directly, but also by just being our friends and being there when we need them.  Knowing that someone wants to spend time with us, talking and sharing ideas and thoughts--and not just on their own terms--can be one of the more positive aspects of our lives.

I think, though, that we often put unrealistic expectations on our friends and on our friendships.  When we're close to someone, we often start to think that things should go a certain way in our relationships--and they don't always do that.  Sometimes this can happen because the last best friend we had did this--so shouldn't this new friend do this, also?  The fact is, though, that each of our friends is a unique individual, and is going to act and react in their own ways, not in ways that we expect them to act.

And it's important that we respect the uniqueness of each of our friends.  No one should necessarily agree with us on everything.  No one should necessarily like all the things that we like.  We shouldn't expect anyone to react in any certain ways to any stimulus--our friend may be glad that the new law was passed, even though we absolutely hate it.  That shouldn't, in most cases, affect our friendship at all.  (Of course, the nature of the law may expose certain things about someone else that we didn't know before, which definitely may affect a friendship.)

Friendships may end by someone moving away, me or them.  When we don't have the same amount of contact with someone, it's very easy to grow distant.  Emails may be easier to write than letters used to be, and phone calls are much easier to make nowadays, but people still grow apart when there's a physical distance between them.  And the need to have someone to talk to, face to face, may make it necessary for one of the friends to find someone else to take over the role that the old friend used to fill.  When that happens, the ties that used to bind two people together weaken and are much easier to break.

With some friends, we may break all contact, while other friends may end up being acquaintances with whom we're in contact now and then.  This isn't always purposeful--often, it just happens, as it may happen to two boats left in a waterway.  Those two boats aren't going to stay together unless they're tied, as they're both going to react differently to the currents that provide movement--thus the saying that people tend to "drift apart," just as two boats will.

Of course we need to grieve when we lost a friend, but it hardly means that our lives are over.  There are many, many more potential friends around us all the time, and the more time we spend focused on what we've lost, the less time we have to develop new friendships.

This dynamic has always been a part of my life.  When I was a child my father was in the military, so we moved from place to place very often.  Whenever we'd move, we would lose the friends that we had made, and it was always difficult.  We learned, though, to be resilient and to make new friends in whatever new environment we found ourselves in.  Other people who live in the same place for decades may be better at maintaining established friendships, but that's okay.

Losing friends and friendships isn't something I speak of lightly, but I do find it very important to be able to deal with the loss as well as we can.  I've learned in life that friends do come and go, and one of the best things we can do with this dynamic is to enjoy their company while they're with us so that if they do end up moving away from us (literally or figuratively), we'll have had a great time with great people, and we're also able to move on effectively with our lives.