As a theme I seem to revisit, for all sorts of reasons I’ve been thinking a bit lately about how friendships go in and out flux, how two people can be really close and in sink for weeks, months … even years, and then, for probably several reasons, many of them subtle, you can fall out of sink, for a week, month or even years. Which isn’t necessarily to say that one friend did the other wrong or harm. Sometimes two people just drift apart. And sometimes they drift back. You’re in sync again.
As a theme I seem to revisit, for all sorts of reasons I’ve been thinking a bit lately about how friendships go in and out flux, how two people can be really close and in sink for weeks, months … even years, and then, for probably several reasons, many of them subtle, you can fall out of sink, for a week, month or even years. Which isn’t necessarily to say that one friend did the other wrong or harm. Sometimes two people just drift apart. And sometimes they drift back. You’re in sync again.
In [i]Cat’s Cradle[/i], Kurt Vonnegut talks about a [i]karass[/i], what he defines as [i]a group of people who, often unknowingly, are working together to do God’s will. The people can be thought of as fingers in a Cat’s Cradle[/i]. So those in our [i]karass[/i], to me, are the groups of people who are close to us, who influence us the most, for a while. And then some drift out of that circle while others drift in, and sometimes, the ones that drift away, come back, sometimes they never return.
It’s going back almost a decade now, but I had a friend that came into my life for a few years. Of those three years, I’d say we were reasonably close for about one year, sorta close for one year, and then a bit more distant for the third year, until finally, we drifted apart. We don’t speak at all now. We didn’t have a fight, nobody wronged the other. It was just our time.
But during the close year, he put me in touch with someone who wound up changing my life in a profound way. And so it became clear to me that our fates were to come together for a short while, and influence one another in a certain way. And once that happened, it was time to move on. It took me a little while to fully embrace this idea, but now I’m grateful for it.
We are not all meant to be close to everyone we meet. And we are not necessarily meant to be close to one person, to the same degree, forever. Which isn’t to say we can’t be. But I find it rare.
The key, for me at least, is being okay with the flux of the relationships. Is it absolutely important for me to be bestest friends truly and for sure with the same person all times forever? I’ve certainly had friendships at different points in my life when I felt as close to someone as I had ever felt up until that time. But it has never lasted. As human beings, we need continued shared experiences to keep the friendship going, or, inevitably, we drift apart. Without new shared experiences, we’re holding onto the past, and that never lasts.
And as I’ve learned about myself, it’s okay if the friendship ebbs and flows, or even ends, even when it pains me, or the other person, for a while. Losing a friendship is like suffering a little death. We grieve. And then we move on.
I have one friend in particular who I’ve known almost 20 years. At some points in our friendship we were as close as brothers. At other points we were much, much less so. And yet we always manage to find out way back. The friendship endures. We keep on keepin’ on. And my expectation is that we will be friends throughout our lifetime.
But it isn’t always easy.
I find that the closer I get to someone the tougher it is to remain that close, because when we open ourselves to the more intimate–and often fragile–elements of ourselves, there’s more chance for bruised feelings, bruised egos. To feel rejected. So sometimes we lash out, or we retreat.
Being close with someone is tough. And sometimes it’s easy. Just depends on the friends and the nature of that friendship. I’ve got one friend who I talk to every now and again, sometimes even years go by, and it’s like we were never apart. One of my very best friends lives in another state, and we’ve only been in the same room together three times in the last 16 years. Doesn’t matter. We’re as close as ever. With other friends, sometimes we run out of things to say after 10 minutes.
One friend I’ve known for 29 years. A half dozen others go back 19 years, and a few others go back almost 15.
And it’s a funny thing, how we define our friends. Sometimes having [i]buddies[/i] is easier than having [i]friends[/i], because with buddies it’s all playtime. It’s shared experiences of fun. You don’t get into the "stuff" too often. And because you stay out of the danger zones, the friendship endures. Is that better or worse than being closer with someone, but with more volatile components? Don’t know.
Through it all I just try to be the best friend I can, given who I am and what my values are, and act with the assumption that my friends understand my intentions are good. At the same time, I also know that, despite those intentions, I am simply going to get it wrong sometimes, just as my friends will get it wrong sometimes, and that we need to give each other enough space to get it wrong, and to get past it. If there’s room to breathe, to be human, then there’s opportunity for the friendship to endure. To thrive. And then we can hope it does, enjoying each other as much as possible along the way.
So now that I’ve blathered on and on, I dedicate this blog to all my friends, past, present and future, grateful for them all, in all the ways that make them who they are, and all they’ve given me (even when that was driving me bonkers–and vice versa!). And I look forward to all that is yet to come, because when it comes to being a friend, in some ways, I feel like I’m just getting started.
