So maybe you were one of those people who exchanged bracelets or kept half a BFF heart and gave the other to your very best friend when you were young. I did. But now I am 30 and I dont need a bracelet or a charm to outwardly signify that I care about someone or that they are supposed to care about me. Honestly, there are a select few that will never leave my heart and I will never leave theirs. We may go for months without talking or years without seeing each other but I also know that is a part of growing up and living your life. When we talk or are around each other, the comfort and caring all returns. If I ever needed them, I know they would be in my corner without question. Then again, there are some people in life, I am learning, that need to be kept at a distance or weeded out completely, simply because,their lifestyle can be detrimental to yours or you have just grown too far apart on too many levels. This becomes increasingly harder as you get older because you no longer have school to throw you together in the social sense and there is so much time and effort put behind a friendship, that to sever it seems almost a waste, no matter what the reason.
I recently went to visit a friend that I had not seen in a year, since her wedding. It was only for an hour or 2 but from the second I walked back in the door of the house she grew up in, it was if nothing had changed. Sure, we had husbands and kids now, but the atmoshere and feeling was the same as it had been since middle school. As soon as I felt it I missed being surrounded by that again. But the curious thing was that it apparently passed to our children as her son greeted mine at the door by exclaiming "Let my friend in!" The entire time they were inseperable.
There are others however whom you look at and wonder where it all went wrong. A friend I had since the 5th grade, I never hear from since she visited and during that visit, alcoholism pushed our friendship to a breaking point. Not unsalvagable, mind you, but enough so that 6 years later, we still have yet to have a real conversation. Two of my college buddies it would seem, have gotten a new set of friends who are so much different than me. This one is tough because I feel replaced, like I was never good enough. These new people start playing all the roles I always thought I was meant to play. Fighting it is useless because I will never, nor would I ever want to change into those kinds of people, especially to please someone else. So what do you do? Walk away? Get angry? Move on?
I really don't have the answer. What I tend to do is put a whole lotta distance there. Maybe my friends will come back to me since those people are generally fleeting, and maybe not. In the meantime, how do you make lasting friends with your kind of people in life after school?
