Friends -- Not the show

I'm starting without a quote tonight. I know that's unusual for this blog, and I also know as a quote fiend that one can't throw the proverbial rock on a quotes site or in Bartlett's without hitting a score of friendship quotes. Maybe I'll go back and add one later.

My friends are the greatest group of people on earth. For one thing, they consistently put up with my crap. I am not now, nor have I ever been, an easy person to get along with. I am often moody and am quite frequently not fit company for man or beast. I worry. I am classic Type-A personality, and God help you if you ever have to work on any kind of project with me. Despite these things, they are always around to help pick me up when I run out of strength from trying to do everything on my own. They are always there to bandage the wounds and mend the tears when I fall flat on my face.

I have been thinking about how friendships change as one gets older. I have been blessed in my life with a group of true, long-time friends. My best friend and I have known each other since kindergarten. She toddled up to me as I was screaming my head off after my mother's departure on my first day away from her and my grandmother and asked, "Why are you crying?" We managed to overcome that inauspicious beginning, and she and I passed through the trials of high school and the giddy happinesses of college before she married a great guy and went off to better things.

Another of my friends and I have gone to church together for years. She's the piano player; I play the organ. She's as vivacious as I am shy. She just had her first baby, and seeing her with that precious gift is one of the catalysts that started this reflection.

I don't see any of my friends as much as I used to. I don't guess anybody our age does. Life intrudes. It's hard to get up at 5:30 to go to work and then come home to an active social life later on, especially since, oddly enough, most of my friends are either teachers or are married to teachers, so we all have lesson plans and grading in the evenings. I have never felt disconnected from my friends, though. Even though I only get to see some of them a couple of times during the year, and there are a couple whom I only get to catch up with via email or a phone call, I still feel that bond that connects.

Some people would argue that it's not possible to maintain a friendship this way. I wonder how else it's done? With a few exceptions, we live at least 90 min. away from each other. Actually, several of my friends are scattered across the US, and at least one of my friends is on a different continent. I love them not one tiny bit less, but the active keeping up with things is hard.

The other thing that triggered this meandering is the fact that two of my friends announced I won't get to see them as often because they are going to leave our church. I can understand their reasons...I've pondered doing it myself often enough, but I can't help but be sad. I wanted to say something when the announcement was made, but what was there to say? Now, I just wonder when I will I ever see them. The only time I ever get to see them is on Sunday or when we have a get-together. I feel like I'm losing them.

That sadness brought in memories of other friendships that did just end. Everybody has relationships they are glad to see fade. Mine involve a girl from high school who turned out to be crazy and a guy from grad school who turned out to be an ass. (Oops...violated the PG-13 rating...) There have been other friendships that I really mourn, though. One in particular comes to me when it's quiet and gnaws at me. This friend and I met in graduate school and got along famously. She came to teach at the same school I was working at in Japan, and we had a fabulous time. I thought our friendship was a true thing, but soon after I left, she totally cut ties with me.

It's been two years now, but I still can't figure out what happened. I guess I must have done something that she considered an insult or a betrayal. Maybe she had been waiting for me to leave. I just can't understand how something that seemed so true could have turned out to be so empty. I have tried to find out how she's doing through other friends we share, but, probably out of politeness, nobody knows anything.

I just wish I knew what it was that I had done. I never meant any insult, and I had thought she knew me well enough to at least ask if she thought I'd done something offensive or wrong. I turn the problem over again and again, but I never find any closure on it. If I had an email from her saying, "I hate you. Die, b****, die!" then I could probably move on. I will never know if she's having a good life, if something happened and she is having a hard time, if I offended or was just oblivious when I thought our friendship was true, or anything else. And, I have to live with that. There is no other choice.

The last two days have been a real rollercoaster as I watch life change around me. I am so happy on one hand for the joy of a long-awaited new life. On the other, I'm sad because two more of my friends seem to be slipping away. Bitter and sweet together. I guess that's the nature of life.