Leaving Friends Behind
Written on August 21, 2004 while on vacation in Idaho:
We are still in Boise and scheduled to fly out in a few hours. Kent is sleeping and I am wide awake thinking about many things. I'm reflecting on this trip that we've taken to our home state of Idaho. We met with old friends from college and just last night I met with my best friend in the world who I went to grade school, middle school, and high school with. We grew up together. He is like family to me. Yet, we haven't spoken for the last twenty years. It seems that our paths have gone in different directions. It's not that we have nothing in common. We talked last night and it's as if no time has gone by. Yet, for some reason we have lost touch with each other.
I'm left with the question, why? I've always told myself on so many occasions, "There is no 'why'", but I find the notion of leaving dear friends behind unsettling, when I value friendship above everything else. Should I be valuing friendship so highly, or should I focus more on my path in life and what I want to achieve? Is friendship really... real?
I say this because if it is real and has value, why is it so easily discarded? Or perhaps being friends with someone and being in touch with someone are different issues. If you don't see or talk to someone for twenty years for no apparent reason, is the friendship still maintained? It's a disturbing concept to me because I have many people in my life that I know. Some are people I work with, some I come in contact with through other people I know. Yet, they are just people that I meet, and go on about my life. I would expect these people to enter and leave my life because there is no real attachment to me.
Is friendship the same way? I've always put it on a higher pedestal than mere acquaintances, yet, it seems to be treated the same as acquaintances. People who I love and have shared so much with can go for years without contact with me. If emails or messages from me are not returned, I assume that there is no longer a desire for friendship. So, nothing happens and years go by. Does friendship matter any more in this world of ours, or has it been replaced by something else?
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My father once told me when I was still in my late teens that the people who were my friends then would not be my friends in just a few years. I figured he’d said that because he wasn’t very fond of my friends at that point in my life. Turns out, for the most part he was right. There is no one left from that time that I have any contact with even though at the time I thought at least one of those friendships would be life long.
Only one of that original crowed remained a friend of mine for years afterwards, but recently I wrote a piece on my blog about thedeath of that relationship.
The whole notion of friendship remains a mystery to me.