Friends

There are many types and variations of friendships with differences in depths and commitment levels. There are friendships that weather many storms and come through intact. There are friendships that are far more fragile and do not withstand the harsh winds of adversity. Some friends are friends because you make the commitment to love them in spite of themselves and them you.

There are casual friendly-ships, like those between neighbors on a first name basis that lend a helping hand or garden tool from time to time, but really know little of one another personally. These are similar to coworker-ships. It is possible to work with someone for years, being cordial enough to look at the occasional vacation picture and listen to one another’s weekend adventures in Little League without ever getting to any level of intimacy at all.

In your school years, you believe friends will last forever. You change ‘Best Friends’ many times in one year of elementary school alone. By middle and high school, you are convinced that your closest friends will be by your side all the days of your life. Their opinions carry the most influence in these years. When cultivating college friends, the high school friendships dim a bit, but never really lose that sense of belonging somewhere in your bank of important relationships.

There is a poem out there about friendships that basically says there are friends for a reason in your life that just go away when the reason no longer exists. Then there are friends for a season of your life. They, too, are there for a purpose to fulfill before moving on. The last type of friend was the ones that are lifetime friends, there for the duration. Each type was to be appreciated and cherished for the role in which they play.

It always seemed pointless to me when a friend faded away. I could not understand why that was necessary in this day of instant communication. To some degree, I still feel that way. I know life evolves and with it, friendships can take on another, unfamiliar form. The crux of the issue, I believe, is that people just do not make the time to maintain relationships and that is exactly what it takes. Friendships require maintenance, as do family relationships. You cannot retain a healthy, robust relationship if you are not willing to invest yourself. If a relationship is one sided, it limps around in circles. You can not walk through life with someone if you’re going in circles alone, watching from a distance. So, then can you call that particular relationship a friendship? Can you even call it a relationship?

Perhaps evaluating what qualifies as a real relationship/friendship for us personally dictates those we can actually call friend and which fall into the friendly-ship category. I once had a friend that divorced me, not literally divorced ME but divorced the relationship; the loss was monumental. We had been best friends for over nine years, sharing pregnancies, secrets, dreams and pretty much any thought that bounced around in our heads. I was devastated and mourned that relationship a long time. She had been married to my brother-in-law and felt the need to terminate all family ties when they did literally divorce. Nothing I said or did broke through the wall she built around herself, no appeal to the memory of all we shared over the years. Silence became the only thing we shared…….I was limping around in a circle with a broken heart.

Years later I called her to let her know my mother had passed away. She was once close to my mother and I knew she would want to know. I had to chase down information to find her. The first words out of her mouth when she got on the phone realizing I was on the other end were, “I’ve grown up a lot since we last spoke.” Not hello. We talked for a long time. We met at a later date for coffee and sharing pictures of the kids. Later still, we had lunch at her new home. It was never the same. We still laughed a lot but the trust that makes up the character of friendship was never recovered. The lack of maintenance rendered us a friendly-ship at best.

I believe there is a direct correlation between the quality of your relationships and the quality of your life. If you are not investing in one, the other suffers. They are mutually dependent. Invest yourself today in a relationship you deem valuable. The dividends are remarkable.