"Friends are friends forever,
if the Lord is the Lord of them
And a friend will not say never,
cause the welcome will not end
Though it's hard to let you go
In the Father's hands I know
That a lifetime's not too long...
to live as friends."
-Michael W Smith -
This song was sung at my brother’s graduation by a heartfelt senior high choir. Everyone hugged each other, cried and swore lifelong friendship. It seemed impossible that we would ever lose touch. We would make sure that our friendships made the distance.
But 17 years on, I am only regularly in touch with one of those people.
Recently I found a bag of letters I had received in the two years after I came back from Pakistan – aged 16 to 18. I had probably 100 letters from one friend in that period.They were full of her deepest feelings, worries and crushes. I have no doubt I wrote equivalent letters back to her. We were as close as you could be, on two different continents.
But I haven’t spoken to her now in more than 10 years. And we haven’t written personal letters to each other in more than eight.
What went wrong? See tomorrow's post for an answer.
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1 comment:
That was the year you left, wasn't it? and Sarah...and then there were 5!! Wow, that song meant so much at the time! Things do move on and life does get in the way of maintaining friendships (or one's poor letter-writing ability)... re-connecting with people through facebook has brought all sorts of emotions to the fore that I thought had gone all that time ago... they were special friendships at school, and like you say, as you get older the nature of friendships change. Even though you keep hoping for the same depth, it gets harder to invest in friendships too. The more you experience them change or fall apart... it takes longer to be vulnerable with each other and to feel that putting the effort in is going to be worthwhile.
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