You know as we age our needs change and friendships that once worked may no longer. It may not be the case that you planned on losing the friendship, but sometimes in one fragile moment the friendship loses its ability to sustain or bare the burden of anymore strife. I have lost friendships in this manner. Ones that were very important to me. Ones I didn’t feel ready to lose. Mostly I think we lose them out of stupidity.
Sometimes we lose them through negligence. And over the months and years they cannot be regained again. I have ones like that too. Ones that were lost due to family crises that lasted a long time. We just never found our way back to each other after the crisis came an end.
I even lost one once, as I approached a rough patch with studying and what not. I stupidly thought that once the training was complete, I could return and pick up the pieces. I forgot that a friendship is a living breathing entity that needs oxygen to survive. If you don’t breathe life into it every once and awhile, it sputters and chokes. Just can’t survive.
All of these losses are so very sad to me. What I know is that I never lose them and feel settled with it. I always take time to reflect back on what happened. What could have been different. I always wonder how they are, how they are filling their time and what is going on in the current stories of their lives. But I will never really know. Once the season of the friendship ends, it’s really over. Truly done. It should be mourned and put away, but instead they haunt me. Something that was so comforting and fun, becomes a source of pain and mystery.
To the people that I have lost, I wish you well with all my heart. I wish we could go back in time and repair the rift, but I know you are lost forever.