My beautiful Family

My beautiful Family

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Friendships

Today's blog started out being about what we did today, but I think I am going to post about that tomorrow when I have all the pics uploaded, because it just won't be the same without all the awesome pics.  Instead this post is going to be about friendships.  The reason I changed it last minute is because something just came to me (one of those moments I talked about yesterday that usually comes during the day when I am away from my computer, or when I am falling asleep).

I have a lot of friends, some are close, some are not, some are best friends and some are more like family.  When I moved from Texas to California when I was 11 it was really hard on me.  I was leaving my entire life behind, all my lifelong friends.  Everyone told me I would make new ones, but it would never be the same as the ones I was leaving behind.  Everyone told me I could keep in touch with my old ones, but with time came the new friends, still not as good as the old ones, but they kept me busy enough that the letters and phone calls to the old ones (one in particular) became further and further between and to this day I don't remember who was the last one to call or write to one another.  It is a little easier now with Facebook and email and texting and things like that, but things will never be the way they were when we were 11 (and thanks to Facebook we are talking again, and we even see each other in person on occasion).  I don't expect things to be the same, almost 20 years of growing up has happened since then, but it is still great to catch up, look at old (really old) pictures of us when we were 2 playing in the snow, and old dance pictures and watching our kids play now who are the age we were is just to cool (to bad we never went to University of Texas in Austin together and became dorm buddies while I majored in music, but I think our lives turned out great anyway, God had a better plan for us, I just regret all the years we missed out on).

Once I moved to California, I found it really hard to make friends, I had this "stigma" attached to me, it was called "I'm from Texas, and apparently I talk different than all of ya'll so let's make fun of me" anyone else have this one or one like it that followed you?  Well I did and I didn't like it.  I made a few friends and soon by high school I had the biggest and best group of best friends anyone could ever have.  Still to this day I love each and every one of them, they became family, my mom was their mom, their mom was my mom, we did EVERYTHING together, we were inseperable.  I hope that when all of my kids grow up that they will have a group like mine, even though they will never be as cool as we were, but they can sure try. 

Then, it happened again, my senior year.  Time to move again.  Military life really stinks when you are 17.  I once again had to leave all of my friends, my best friends, my family of friends.  My world came crashing down around me once again.  My saving grace...one of my best friends had moved to the same place the year before me.  I had one, just one friend, and that was all I needed.  By then we had email and AOL, but it was dial-up and it just sucked.  Nothing like what we have now, if we had then what we have now, our friendships would have never changed.  We could have facetimed all the time and had sleepovers online and all kinds of stuff (the ideas are endless!!!), but we couldn't.  And by the time all of this stuff came about, 8 years had passed, we had gotten married, had kids, gotten divorced (some of us), gotten remarried.  A lot of actual growing up had happened.  And a lot of growing apart had happened too.  The closeness that was there before, just wasn't there anymore, try as we might, it just wasn't.  I still to this day love them all dearly and wish things could be back the way they used to be, back when we all lived in the same area, went to the same school, but we can't.

I now have new friends again, some are close, some are new, and some are like family that I don't know what I would do without. My friendships with my new friends are different than my old friendships were.  I wish I could combine the two, but that isn't going to happen and I know this.  Sometimes moving on from friendships is really hard, sometimes you feel like your heart is going to rip out of your chest because leaving your old friends behind hurts so bad, even though you know that there are going to be new friends just around the corner, it doesn't make it any easier, if anything it makes it harder because you know that eventually, you are going to love them dearly, and they are going to go and you have to do it all over again.

So here is the question I give to you.  What do you do?  Continue forward, push on and hope that these new friends never leave you, stop making friends all together?  Break all ties with friends when you notice that things are starting to frey between you because of work, family, ministry, or life is just getting in the way? Or just keep moving forward, acting like nothing is wrong and hope they find their way back, technology is an awesome thing after all.

1 comment:

  1. Here is what I was thinking after reading your post. (I wish I was better friends with you in high school than being shy and awkward all the time but I am glad we are good friends now!) We are both unique in the fact that we have had a larger than usual turnaround of friends having a military background (from growing up and then either joining or marrying someone who joined) With that we both know what its like for friends to come and go, whether its for a moment or for an extended period of time.

    With that said, the way that I have seen it is that God blesses us with the people in our lives to enrich us and show us things that we probably wouldn't have seen or experienced otherwise. Thankfully with the advances of technology compared to high school for us, its easier to stay in touch with friends given that both work at it (like in Couples Retreat, its a two way street not a highway and a bike path). However it does happen that eventually some friends do go and if you are meant to remain friends then God will make a way for it to happen.

    As far as making new friends, that is a necessary thing as well. Especially since they bring a fresh set of eyes and perspective that you might have never thought possible. With that is another avenue that God uses for you to grow and blossom even more! :)

    Anyway that was my thoughts. Hopefully they make sense!

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