quote for the week.

It takes a long time to grow an old friend.  ~John Leonard

Saturday night I spent some time at a surprise 30th birthday party for an old High School friend. I've known every person in this photo for 15+ years. It's very comforting coming back to old friends and feeling like you still know each other, like there was a momentary pause in your history instead of half decade or more gap. Or to take moments like this as a gift in a time of changing lives and friendships. 

These children have all known each other since birth.  I have so many pictures of them through the years, and it's probably a good thing that I have none of those pictures on this computer, otherwise this would turn into a novel length post during which I recount every cute and touching story and cry over all the pictures of them growing up.

Instead I'll share just this one. My son is 7 months younger than the oldest of the group. I was very good friends with his mother so by default the kids were all friends. When my friends son was 6 he was diagnosed with Aspergers. He has some social ineptness, but is really one of the kindest, most gentle, most interesting little boys I have ever met. When the kids were young, it wasn't a big deal. Evan barely even noticed. It was just who his friend was, he wasn't different - he was just himself. A few years ago Evan began to pick up on it. He said to me one day "Mom, J**** isn't really like everyone else is he? But that's ok, cause he's just J****".

Over the years we've seen less and less of my friend and her children. We used to see them almost every day. But as we've grown and our kids have grown and we've moved and life fills up it's turned into once every several months.  

Last year, we moved and Evan invited a bunch of new friends from the new school to his sleepover birthday party, along with his old friend J*. Now as they've gotten older, it's become much more apparent that J* is not at the same social level as other kids his age. Sadly, 11 year old boys aren't always kind and they teased J* quite a bit. 

So this year, when asking Evan what he would like to do for his birthday party - either have a bunch of friends over, or take 2 friends and go to dinner and have a sleepover - he chose 2 friends for a sleepover.  I was expecting him to choose the 2 boys he became the closest to over the last year at school.  He decided, without hesitation that he wanted to invite J*, but wasn't sure who the 2nd person would be yet, since as he said "my friends weren't very nice to him last year".

I would not have thought much about it if he had made a different choice. I wouldn't have been disappointed. Times changed, friendships change and pre-teens can be pretty self-centered. I'm pretty proud of him for making the choice he did. For valuing his lifelong friendships. More importantly, for noticing that what happened last year was wrong. I know that it's not always easy for a 12 year old boy to make that sort of choice. 

I've had some worrisome moments as Evan becomes a pre-teen. He can be rude and snooty and very teenage-ry.  I know we're going to have some difficult moments over the next few years. And I hope I remember the time, that without hesitation, he made the choice to not only hold onto an old friend, but to help protect him. 


And a second quote, just because it's running through my head. We sang this all the time in Girl Scouts!

Make new friends,
but keep the old.
One is silver,
the other is gold.

A circle is round,
it has no end.
That's how long,
I will be your friend.

Dear Friend

Dear Friend,

I'm a coward. That's why I'm writing this here. Because I need to get it out there. I need the words to be said. But I can't say them to you. I don't know how to talk to you anymore. I'm pretty sure you don't read this and that's ok. Maybe just knowing that the words are out there, floating around will be enough for me. Or maybe it will give me the nerve to tell you, in person. This probably won't be short and sweet. You know me. You know how I ramble and over explain and repeat everything. You're the only one who never seemed annoyed at one time or another by it.

I think it's time we break up.

There, I said it.

Someone I respect said recently:

Friends come and go, they go in and out of your life. Sometimes you have friends from way back who are somehow a permanent fixture in your life--past and present. Maybe you never talk anymore or see each other, but they are always there, attached to you by gossamer love. Well, it feels delicate like that, yet it persists and persists and follows you everywhere you go. That friend pops into your head when you laugh about something only they would understand.

And all of that makes me think of you. But you know what hit me the hardest? Friends come and go. I had a friend from the time I was 5 until I was 15. I couldn't imagine life without her, and then one day she was gone. But it was painless. We still have occasional contact. Cards and things. I found her recently, she has two young children. She'll always be special to me. But I didn't mourn her going. I've had other friends come and go. You've come and gone and again and again. But it never felt raw or wrong. Not before. Now it does. Now I'm not content to let this friendship come and go.

I can't keep letting it go, I think. Or maybe I don't know how to let it go that last time. I don't know why. I think if we met today, we'd never be friends. I don't think we'd like each other very much.

We've grown so far apart it's hard to recognize you sometimes. But no matter how much we disagreed on really important things we still respected each other. I think I can pinpoint exactly when we started going in different directions, a long, long time ago. Or maybe not - maybe it just never mattered before. It never mattered that you turned so far right when I went left. We had a bond stronger than any of that.

You knew me. You knew everything. You were there for everything. For some of the most difficult moments in my life. I could always, always depend on you. You've seen me at my worst. And you still loved me. You still came around. You would tease me or laugh about some of my crazies. But you rarely judged me. You were the only person I could tell everything to. I thought I had other people like that in my life, but I was proven wrong.

Along the way though, that changed. I've been growing up. And I think you've been staying the same. Honestly, I just can't relate to you anymore. And it's been so long, that our past isn't strong enough to hold us up anymore. That was one thing we could always fall back on - our shared past. But over the last decade, we haven't been creating a new past to lean on over the next decade.

Gah. I don't know. Told you I would over analyze it. But you knew that.

As we've grown older we've gone from talking daily to weekly to monthly to 3 or 4 times a year. I've stopped calling you, because I'm tired of being ignored. I'm tired of feeling like I'm begging for your friendship. You say it's not just me, and I know that. I know the same thing is happening with your other friends. But I can't keep doing it.

It used to be that we could not see each other for a week, and more recently for several months, and things would pick right up where they left off. But not any more. Now it feels like work to be around you. It feels awkward and fake.

And for those reasons and a million more, I know I should let this friendship die. I know it's time.

But there's a part of me, a big part of me, that just can't. No one understands why. I don't understand why. Maybe I'm afraid no friend will really ever "get me" again. Not the way you did. They just won't know me. They weren't there for all those really hard years. They won't get all the old jokes. They don't know who I was before I was a mom. This me is all they know.

They didn't know me when I was young, and free and fun.

Before I became afraid of being home alone. Before I became dependent on being in a relationship, before I had children, before I worked full time, before I thought 10 pm was late at night, before I was (increasingly!) neurotic. They don't know the me that you knew. That you know.

Sometimes I don't know, or remember, that me anymore either. But, when I'm around you, I do.

I guess maybe part of the reason I'm so damn afraid to let you go, is because it's letting a huge part of myself go too.

And you know, I'd take it all back. All of this, every word. If only you were you again. If only you would come to me, as someone I recognize. I'd throw every word of this away and we'd sit and have a glass of wine and talk about our past.


And I guess that's why I can't leave you. Even though every year I get more annoyed by this. Some days I'm so tired of it I convince myself that this is the day - I'm just going to let it go. And then I don't.

I could let it die, just fade away. That's what's happening. I know it would work. But it seems wrong to end it that way. I think our friendship deserves better then that. It deserves a formal goodbye. Or maybe just a see ya later. It deserves to be acknowledged though.

:sigh:

This is crazy. And you know that. And you would get it.



Love,

Me.