When you’re little it’s easy to make friends. You’re 4 years old, you see a kid on the playground & go up to them and ask if they want to play tag and by the end of the game you’re best friends! Excited and ready to explore other fun adventures on the playground together.
It’s easy to make friends when the expectations for friendships are so simple.
For a child, there’s only one specific parameter that they judge as to whether or not someone is their friend: to be invited and included.
As we get older, however, the expectations expand. The character of a friend in combination with your own either sharpens you or makes you dull by simple association.
But that foundational desire and need to be invited and included remains.
It’s an interesting irony because when we’re young we’re so excited to go to absolutely every social gathering we’re invited to because of the status of being invited gives the illusion of being desirable. But when we’re older, we’re more selective. We want to know more details, because we understand the time, effort & energy it takes to be on our “A-game” and we don’t want to waste that on just anyone.
What’s interesting though, is that we live our lives without the expectation of outgrowing people.
You look at your future, and see them in it. Not realizing that not all friendships grow together. Some grow apart. It doesn’t mean that the season that they were in your life is any less valuable because that season is now over.
It was valuable when it was valuable, and now that it’s over you can appreciate the friendship for what it was. They were a character in a few chapters of the story of your life, not a main character in every chapter of the whole story.
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My good friend of over 12 years had provided so much understanding, kindness, and active listening that anyone would want in a friend. Someone who genuinely listens when I speak, asks engaging questions when I tell stories and they remember what I was saying if I lose my train of thought. They’re a contemplative thinker, with emotional intelligence & thoughtfulness that I’ve always admired. They understand my anxiety driving in bad weather, and will stay on the phone with me to ensure I get home okay. But, this was also a friend that was sporadic in attendance but genuine when they made an appearance. Spending time with them in person for the first time in 7 years was a weekend I had been looking forward to for weeks.
Leading up to this trip, however, I felt a tugging in my heart and mind that made me feel that I needed to have a conversation with them to clarify some things. So I asked God to provide clarity. And I prepared myself for whatever that clarity would reveal.
Ultimately? I drove 7 hours round trip in a span of 24 hours to break up with a friend. I didn’t know that’s what I was going to do when I got there, but very quickly after our great dinner together— we had a long, honest talk.
I’ve known this friend since I was 17, now at 29 we have a slew of memories to remember. Distance always separated us, but we never let that stop us from keeping in touch periodically over the last decade.
I love my friend, the memories we shared, the time spent together, but inevitably we grew apart in ways that once kept us close. They grew from their life experiences, I grew from mine— but our mutual growth didn’t cause us to grow together, but rather—apart. Our shared common desires weren’t so common anymore. There was hurt, anguish, sorrow and brokenness in their heart where there once was joy, hope & faith in growing from adversity and seeing it as an opportunity for their faith to be strengthened. This reality of anguish that they lived in had become pretty common over the last 4 or 5 years. It was a trend that I wanted to help them end.
I told them I wanted to spend more time together, we didn’t live as far apart now as we once did and I wanted to help them heal the jaded parts of them by getting to the root of what led them to this reality. They had other, more convenient, less difficult bandaid methods of healing that they wanted to explore to distract from their pain.
Distract, not heal.
I wanted to help them leverage their pain as a source of strength for their faith to be built up again. But they had their way of dealing with things and they wanted to do it themself, on their own, without me, and no faith building necessary.
And that was their choice.
I was ready to encourage & support them. To wade in the waters of their hardship with them and come out of it closer, and they made it clear that wanted me at arms length. Multiple arm lengths, so as not to be accountable for behavior that they participated in that actually contributed to their own demise.
As we grow older our circles get smaller and we have to decide what we’re capable of handling within our own emotional bandwidth. We also have to make decisions as to who gets intimate access to our flaws, desires, issues & dreams.
And for me?
I was no longer comfortable with them being a main character whenever they decided to show up. At this stage of life, I need more consistency than seeing each other once every 7 years, and talking for 2 hours every 4 years. My needs have changed. Theirs have remained the same. We grew apart.
Vulnerability is a source of strength but so is discernment. And discerning who you’re going to be open and vulnerable with is a lofty responsibility that only a few choice people should fill. There’s only so many hours in a day and you get to decide how you should spend them, and who you should spend them with. And unfortunately for my friend and I— we’re moving on. Not because we had a knock-out drag out fight.
Because we didn’t.
It was an honest, heartfelt conversation. I had perceived the invitation to come see them, was also an invitation to be a closer— more consistent in our mutual efforts to stay in touch— less spontaneous effort, more reliability. That’s what I wanted. But they desired to maintain the level of sporadic attendance so as not to be accountable as to how they continued to break their own heart, but they still desired and expected me to be there to pick up the pieces when they did.
We wanted different things out of a friendship. Different roles that neither one of us was comfortable in compromising on. So, even though it hurts— for both of us it’s time to move on.
There’s no bad blood, Ill will or hard feelings. If I were to see them out somewhere, I’d smile and wave. Because they were an integral part of my young adulthood.
My friend and I can smile and thank each other for the memories, because they really were great for the season they were meant for.
Whether your friends are here for a season or a lifetime, always leave them better than you found them. Then you’ll never feel regret for needing to leave to forge your own path without them. You’ll feel good knowing that they were a part of your story that you can look back on and smile because their attendance, spontaneous or not, helped form you into who you are today.
andrea statler 