Friendships are such fickle things. So fragile. Even the good ones. I have been making new friends lately, and it feels great, most of the time. Sometimes it is less so. It is incredible how good the company of a friend can make you feel. That feeling when you can’t even sit still because of the anticipation of spending time with someone? Or when you’re alone with your thoughts and remembering a recent time when you were hanging out with friends, and you can’t help but to continue laughing to yourself about whatever it was that was just so funny the other night?
Ugh, so good.
But the other side to all that is when that’s gone. It’s not just romances that have honeymoon periods. It’s friendships too.
When you stop hanging out as frequently, or stop looking forward to it. When one or both of you start spending the majority of your time with someone else. When you’ve been too far from someone for too long and can’t manage to cross the chasm with just a phone conversation or an email. When you realize you have no idea at all what is going on in the life of the person you were closest to just 4 months ago. Just a year ago. Just 3 years ago. Whenever.
The emotional state is pretty much just as converse as the state itself. Instead of being giddy with anticipation, you’re hollow with …yourself. Or with whoever or whatever has come along to “replace” what was once there. It isn’t even replacing what was, because it’s not the same. It doesn’t fit. It isn’t right. But it’s supposed to be taking up the same space and energy and time, and that feels wrong too.
This is just a part of life. If you haven’t encountered that yet, be assured, you will. And sure, it’ll suck. But hey. There are dirty gin martinis for a reason. And Cabernet Sauvignon. And cigarettes. And naps. And walks in the dark. And eventually, whatever the new thing in your life is, the whole that it once couldn’t fill will morph and change until that new thing really does fill the hole, and for a while you feel whole again.
Don’t let it sound depressing. It isn’t. It’s life.
The real trick? Be happy with yourself and your life, so that when the people and things come and go, you can go in and out with the tide and manage to stay afloat. Be your own lifeboat. That’s all.
Nothing Was Said 