Friends Forever?

Hello Interwebs once again.

Are we ready for another somber blog post? No? You may want to click away, 'cause I've been thinking about this for a while. It's impregnated my brain, has gestated and is finally ready to pop out all pink and perfect with all the right things in all the right place.

I've been thinking about friendships. Or rather... the changing nature of friendships. Some change and evolve into wonderful things that bring your friendships to new heights, new places. Others fade peacefully, and still others come in fast and furious into your life only to leave just as abruptly. I'm familiar with all these. And I, like many others, am at peace with them. When a friendship changes in one of these ways, I accept it, perhaps with some sadness, depending on the circumstances, and move on.

But there are others that have a bigger impact. The Lifers. For the majority, I'm not one of those people that has a million best friends, crushed when each leaves. Instead, I have many acquaintances, and establish a few significant relationships that haveand I expect will last for years, if not life. I have a small selection of very close friend, a handful at best. It is the changes in these kinds of relationships that can be pretty big. Changes that happen for the better are fabulous. It's so incredibley cool when you suddenly have all these new things that you can talk about, or you know you can talk about all the things that you think are cool, and your friend just lets you and accepts it.

But there are bound to be those friendhips that you lose. You grow apart, you no longer have similar interests. Sometimes you can see it happen, giving you some time to prepare for it. Other times, it happens and makes your head spin.

Maybe it's after a separation or some big life changes, but that friend you knew and loved  is no longer the same person. They've changed and grown to follow a completely different path. You've changed and probably barely realize it. Someimes it's a disliked action where you suddenly realize the changes between you and your friend, or worse that they've been doing this all along, and it's only now you realize it. You struggle to speak with them, to understand them, to re-establish a new connection with this new incarnation of your friend. When that doesn't work, you try to reconnect on that age-old friendship you had. But talking to them is harder than that first class in calculus after a year of doing nothing but English courses. It hits you like a ton of bricks. Regardless of the reason, your close, bonded friendship gone.

It pulls at your heart. You feel like crushed and depressed. You yearn for those younger years when you knew you could count on your friendship to last forever. Movies, coffee dates, walks, talks, games. You miss it all. It seems that it should be simple to get back, but you might as well try to climb up a sheer rock wall. How do you come to terms with a friendship that's ended? When you've been bumped to acquaintence and don't know how to get back? Do you let it go? Fight to get it back?