Making Friends is Easy, Leaving Them is Hard

My ability to make friends has always been relatively easy. Even though I'm secretly freaking out inside, worried I'm annoying this new potential friend and badgering them into hanging out with me. I mean, the fear is so high that I remember walking to our neighbor's house to see if she could come out and play, but filled with dread that I'd ring the doorbell and she wouldn't be home. I didn't want to bother anyone. Talk about anxiety. I was nine. 

But once the anxiety subsides, I'm able push through my own fears and thoughts and build a friendship with this other person. I love it. I love learning about new people, their experiences, their joys, pains, hopes, dreams. The things they find funny and the things that set them off. Everyone is vastly different and everyone has a story to tell. That's one of the reasons I love to read about people and also write about people. 

The one part I still haven't mastered, the one thing that still makes my stomach hurt, is the leaving them behind. 

Leaving Work Friends

What I mean by that is that the friends you make in this life are sometimes only here for a minute. Like when you work at your first job, where you are first exposed to people that may not be in your grade or even your school. Mine was a grocery store. A small-town, grocery store that was being run out by a mega-chain. Most of the employees were highschoolers and it was exciting to be working with seniors when I was a lowly freshman. When that store closed several months later, I was devastated by the friends that I lost because of it. There wasn't Facebook to keep our friendships alive. Maybe the hardest part for me was how effortless it was for everyone else to let go of what we had. 

I moved on to work at a bakery/cafe. I worked there for several years, and every time a senior would graduate and head off to college, my heart would break and I would cry. Of course they always follow up my pity with "we'll come back and visit," but we also all know that those visits get fewer and farther between in the blink of an eye. I've made the statement myself, I think we all have.  

While it still continues to be a challenge for me to let these work relationships go, and while I still hold on to them for dear life until we become acquaintances on social media and I like the pictures of their children and their dinners, I know they are what keep you sane at your job. Without friends at work, the bank I worked at for two long, painful years, probably would have ended more abruptly than it did. Or the friends I made at the bakery/cafe made it more bearable to deal with the tyrant of a general manager. 

Leaving Situational Friends 

To me, situational friends is sometimes a little deeper than work friends. At least that's how I break it down in my mind. Work is situational, yes, but when I think of this group, I think of moving to Boston. We didn't work together, we didn't go to school together, but we lived in the same building while our husbands went to school. Or the people we met in our small group at church. These friends are different because you get to know them on a more personal level. You meet at their houses, talk about where you came from, how long you are sticking around, where you plan on going next. Maybe I consider them a deeper level of friendship because we're grown up (or at least out of high school) and have children and are married. 

I was resistant to making friends in Boston. I didn't want to. I knew we were staying for a short time and didn't want to work on building these relationships up, just to let them fall apart when we left. Plus, I didn't want to dull the relationships back home, all the ones that I left a pin in until we were back to start things up as usual. But eventually, some people dug their way in. One of which I met six months before we were supposed to move back to Minnesota. It made saying goodbye to Boston that much harder. 

A lot of these relationships have stuck, and I was fortunate enough to meet a lot of families that were from Minnesota, making it that much easier to stay in touch. But I still get sad thinking that I can't just bop down the hall to say hello to our neighbors, or go on a run with my running friend, or laugh uncontrollably as we make half-assed Christmas decorations. We can cheer each other on via social media, but I miss the direct connection. It's hard to stay tight-knit when you're experiencing completely different lives. 

Leaving Life-Long Friends

This, by far, is the hardest. I've prided myself on keeping friends for a very long time. I can name several that are at LEAST 10 years old, if not more. If they can get through the rough patches of friendship, then they are there forever. For the good and the bad. Almost like family. Honestly, a friend and I joked about having all of us move to a cul de sac where our families could intertwine. We'd call it "Friendship Village". Nice ring to it, right? 

Some of these friends you meet when you're young, and maybe your ideas on life and the world change and pull you apart. And some of these friends move away and your life slowly drifts into different directions. It's gut-wrenching really. They have known you through some significant times in your life. You expect them to be around forever. Sometimes it's mutual, sometimes it's a slow fade, and sometimes, it's a more brutal release. I'm also fully aware that I might be an oddball and have way too high of expectations of friendships and the longevity of them. 

Does it Ever Get Easier? 

From my point of view, no. There is always a sting, a hole in the place where this friendship used to thrive. Maybe I'm better at expecting it to happen, what with families and moving for work, etc., but I wouldn't say I handle it any better now than I did at 16. Can't we all just be friends forever? Is that such a big ask? Probably. There isn't enough time in a day, or week, or even year to keep hundreds of friendships thriving. Maybe this is just how it's always supposed to be. 

Some people are better at letting go. I call them free spirits. I have friends that seem to always be moving, making new friends, moving again, and they love it. They always have friends everywhere they go and can visit them when they're in town. And that's becoming more true for me, but it doesn't make it any easier. 

I guess I long for the days back in high school when we would all gather into our friend's basement. We'd talk, watch movies, eat, and just do life together. We all went through the same pains, same highs. It was a wonderful time in my life. And if anyone is to ever have that kind of group, those kind of friendships, even if for a moment, then consider yourself lucky. It's a wondrous thing. 

Maybe in the end it's only sad because of the impressions these people leave on you. 

This post is dedicated to all the wonderful friends in my life, whether they be present or if we experienced life together years ago or are just crossing paths now. You've all held such special places in my heart.

Always,

A