When someone is in your life for a reason, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed outwardly or inwardly. S/he has come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally, or spiritually.
S/he is there to meet a need. Then without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time, s/he will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. Sometimes s/he dies. Sometimes s/he walks away. Sometimes s/he acts up or out and forces you to take a stand. What we must realize is that the need has been met.
When a person comes into your life for a season, it is because your turn has come to share, grow, or learn. S/he may bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. S/he may teach you something you have never done. S/he usually gives you an unbelievable amount of joy.
Lifetime relationships teach you lifetime lessons. Those things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. You must accept the lesson, love the person/people anyway, and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life.
We spent two hours on the phone today, catching up on almost two years.
Sure, we’ve sort of kept in touch via Facebook and Twitter but only in passing and most of us don’t put our entire lives into updates of 140 characters, especially when they involve pain or sadness.
And yet not speaking to her properly in that time doesn’t mean that I haven’t thought about her – she was more of a friend than I could ever have hoped for at a traumatic time in my life. She took away a huge worry and made life easier when I felt as if I was falling to pieces.
Prior to that, for a couple of years, our lives had followed a path which meant that we spent time together pursuing a hobby. We were learning and growing as women – sometimes succeeding and, at others, frustrated at the weakness of our own gender. With children of similar ages, our domestic lives also ran parallel in some ways and, in some instances, were very different. But, dealing with kids and their problems was another bond between us. It helped that our personalities make us both very independent, ‘doing’ women who want to make things happen.
She is smart and very funny and I always come away from a conversation with her smiling. But, because of other choices or decisions that were forced upon us, our lives started to take different paths.
I once read some advice about friendship which instructed me not to hang on to friendships for too long as they can go past their sell-by date, particularly if the participants are at different states of their lives.
“Edit them regularly and without guilt if it’s only loyalty keeping you together.”
The piece said that, if one of you is putting in more effort than the other, it is time to cut the ties. A friendship should be 50:50 and, if you only keep in touch with xmas cards, its not friendship any more, just acquaintance.
It also advised that we should not put all our eggs in one basket and that it is ok to have a best friend but that person doesnt have to be your only friend. To have six really good friends is normal.
The latter I can agree with but the former, I’m not so sure about. Sure, you have to accept that you hang onto some friends who were really only meant to be in your life for a reason or a season, and that sometimes you just have to let them go. But having lifetime friends doesn’t always mean living in their pocket for the whole time.
Going away and gaining new experiences brings something fresh to that relationship. It’s about a connection which allows you to go without speaking for years and then just pick up where you left off – as if there has been no hiatus. You just fill each other in on what you’ve been doing and share the laughter and the tears retrospectively.
Friendship doesn’t mean being in touch constantly; it’s a state of mind, an emotional commitment that is not restricted by the boundaries of time or place and which transcends the frantic humdrum of our daily lives on this mortal coil.
It just is…
Having a friend like that is having a true friend. That you both know you’re in each others heart and mind is what keeps you friends. Not the constant physical contact but a sort of spiritual, emotional one.
I’m a bit jealous, outside of family members, I think my record for friendships is something like 5 years.
Rhacodactylus recently posted..Dont Ask Dont Tell- Lady Gaga Is Right
Nitebyrd – exactly. It’s so hard to put it into words :)
Rhac – But do you know that for sure? Who’s to say that an old friend may not reappear out of the woodwork and remind you of a friend you didn’t know you had?