A few years ago when I was new to electronic communication, I gorged myself on ‘e-mail forwards’. Any joke or mass produced deep thought that arrived in my inbox had to be shared. If you were my friend in the late ‘90’s you probably received a message from me daily. Reach out and touch someone. I took that sentiment seriously.
Seriously.
If they had been handing out marks, I would’ve scored an “A” on “Cluttering up Inboxes 101”.
Years later, I can hardly remember any of those witty or insightful messages. Well, there was that one about the woman who used a washcloth filled with glitter and sparkles before she visited her ob-gyn. I won’t ever forget that one. It came on the morning I was scheduled for my annual pap smear. Timing is everything.
Another one that has stuck to my brain cells like peanut butter on a tennis ball is the one about friends. And how some people are friends for a reason. Others for a season. And still others for life.
Back then it bothered me. Shouldn’t all friends be lifers? If a friend was truly a friend, well, then why would they stop being your friend? Wouldn’t a friend make an effort to stay a friend?
Friendships are new to me. I had my first best friend in grade 6. Her name was Tina and she moved into the neighbourhood just a few months after we moved onto the farm. Nothing about our families or our background or our interests was alike; we had nothing but skinny bodies and blonde hair in common. By sheer lack of competition; no one else lived with in a mile of us, she became my best friend.
We were still best friends for most of grade 7, the exception being those few months of insanity when she ‘went around’ with my 10 year old brother.
She moved to the Surrey equivalent of “the projects” in grade 8 and by grade 9 she was living a life that scared me.
In grade 10 I hooked up with Mark. And while I did have another female friend named Gail, I spent all my energy working on my relationship with my boyfriend.
Then, during my own personal 'cling on' era, I spent most of my “friendship” energy on my husband.
It wasn’t until a year after he left that I discovered the joy of having a female friend.
Girlfriends.
Friends who liked to walk.
Or go to movies.
Or talk about relationships. Or home decorating. Or raising kids. Or faith.
Friends who were OK with my singleness long before I was.
Friends who invited me to share their lives and their homes and their vacation time.
Friends who needed me as much as I needed them.
So this business of friends being around for just a reason or a season was pissing me off.
I was not going to let go of anyone.
It was not OK with me to allow someone who was taking up heart space to simply move out of my life because they had served their reason or season purpose.
If they left they were going to have dislocated shoulders from me yanking them back. There would be scratches down their arms from me clawing at them while begging them not to go.
But now?
Well, I’m getting used to it.
People move. People move on.
All four of us have experienced the loss of a friendship this past year.
And each one of my boys was hurting.
My job as Mom is to help them deal with pain and loss. So, spouting the profound wisdom derived from my inbox 5 years ago, I said, “You know what? Sometimes we’re blessed with friends that will be around for our entire lifetimes. But mostly you’ll find that the bulk of your friends will be around for only a particular reason or season. It’s hard to tell up front who’ll hang in there for the long haul. I don’t know who’ll still be in my life next year. I hope all of them… But you never know….My best advice is to treat each friend like a lifer. Make an effort, be loyal, reach out and have fun.”
Of course, I was talking to boys. I think what they heard me say was “sometimes friends are bulky for a particular reason. They need to be seasoned or they’ll rent a u-haul. I don’t know and you don’t know, so go have a treat.”
Three things I'm thankful for:
1. My friends.
2. My kids' friends.
3. But mostly I'm thankful that today was Clint's last day at work. Yay. No more 6 am noises... He'll take the next two weeks to prepare for the summer - and then he's off to Stillwood til the end of August.
Shalom
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