Yesterday I was having a conversation with one office colleague about friendships. And she said she had been ‘friends’ with her friends for a very very long time. With some she’s had close friendship since their childhhod.
And I told her, what I always noticed about my life, that I’ve had friends for every season. In my every need, I’ve had people appearing when least expected, becoming very good friends. Supporting, rescuing, loving through thick and thin.
I have given my 100% to the friendships and received their 100% in return. And yet, I have seen that we’ve eventually become distant.
No, not that things soured and we aren’t friends anymore. But just that the closeness evaporates. The hold is lost. It is never a deliberate falling apart but just a natural drifting away.
I have always wondered if this was normal. Or if I was just a people repeller??
I have never been sans a friend. But I haven’t had a consistent friend or a few close knit friends.
This I am saying about my women friends. In India, it is still common to be best friends with the same sex persons only. Although it isn’t uncommon to be friends with the opposite sex. But I believe that its not the same.
I personally think that a platonic, intimate relationship between a man and woman is eventually complicated by love and physical attraction.
I mean you cannot be great friends with someone with whom you don’t connect at a mental level. And if you connect there and spend much time together as friends do, you are bound to develop feelings… etc etc..
Well, I digress..
So I was saying, I don’t have friends who, for decades, have stayed as close as we started out. While the old friends still continued to be friends, I developed newer friendships and equations changed.
Has that happened to any one of you?
And then I received the following forward from a friend.
So this is to all my friends, whether you’ve been a friend for 20 minutes or 2o years:
When I was little,
I used to believe in the concept of one best friend,
And then I started to become a woman.
And then I found out that if you allow your heart to open up,
God would show you the best in many friends.
One friend is needed when you’re going through things with your man.
Another friend is needed when you’re going through things with your mom.
Another will sit beside you in the bleachers as you delight in your children and their activities.
Another when you want to shop, share, heal, hurt, joke, or just be.
One friend will say, ‘Let’s cry together,’
Another , ‘Let’s fight together,’
Another , ‘Let’s walk away together.’
One friend will meet your spiritual need,
Another your shoe fetish,
Another your love for movies,
Another will be with you in your season of confusion,
Another will be your clarifier,
Another the wind beneath your wings.
But whatever their assignment in your life,
On whatever the occasion,
On whatever the day,
Or wherever you need them to meet you with their gym shoes on and hair pulled back,
Or to hold you back from making a complete fool of yourself ..
Those are your best friends.
It may all be wrapped up in one woman, But for many, it’s wrapped up in several…
One from 7th grade,
One from high school,
Several from the college years,
A couple from old jobs,
On some days your mother,
On some days your neighbor,
On others, your sisters,
And on some days, your daughters.