We talk a lot about the care and maintenance of romantic relationships. There’s helpful content trying to help explain the perspective of each other and communication strategies. Yet for most of us, the longest relationship in our lives are platonic friends. Relationships that see so many different versions of each other as we grow and transform.
Relationships, of any sort, are hard and require ongoing maintenance (Check-ins, the occasional gift doesn’t hurt, etc.). Friendships are of the utmost importance to me, but they also have so many varying seasons across the landscape of your lives, at any given time. They’re like life partners to me. Actually, I’ve got friends in my life who have outlasted all of my long-term relationships.
This year has been a lot of great growth in my friendships and making new ones! More than years before which I think really translates to the work I’ve been doing to be more social. Through all of this, I’ve learned a lot. Some things that I can easily put into words, some that are going to take a bit more time to process.
Traveling with Friends Lets You Appreciate Them More (Generally)
A massive, massive caveat to this: Traveling brings out the best and worst in each of you, proceed with caution and know there are going to be ups and downs on that travel path together.
One of the most stressful situations this year was traveling to New York with my friend Kaiti for an ideal girl’s weekend turned changing-hotels-every-single-night-tortential-downpour-weekend. I mean, you know you’re in a tough situation when you’re grateful to be buying the last ponchos at CVS. Or the highlight is finding a hotel bunk bed room (Yes Marriott has these and they are GREAT!).
But through it, I developed such an appreciation and admiration for her. I saw so many talents she has that I never knew about. We naturally ebbed and flowed with where our strengths could best be utilized. I truly do not think that trip would have strengthened many of my other friendships. But those are strengthened in ways and I might not. It was just a very watershed moment of clarity of how much we’ve grown as people and our relationship.
And as I massively disclaimed, traveling with friends isn’t for everyone and you often can’t know this until it’s too late. But in this instance, that trip, which had overwhelming odds to be miserable, is one of the highlights of my friendship with her (and we’ve known each other since college) and we’re going to do it again!
Sometimes Friendships Pick Back Up
(But Differently)
Because life has a sense of humor, as my friendship above paused, the friendship that created the term in my life came back. Out of nowhere. And threw my world just as upside down as it did when it happened years ago. But also demonstrated the growth that can happen only when you really take the time to evaluate your own actions and accountability in a situation.
I met up with them after a series of emails and thinking about if I wanted to meet face-to-face. Yes and no. Yes, because I do care but no because reflecting on when we pause to now yielded such a different person. One who was aware of the freedom she felt to explore herself as it ended. It went well. We still talk. I’ve been able to say what I’m comfortable with and respond within a healthy mindset vs out of fear if I don’t respond fast enough or ask the right questions I’ll be banished from their life. It’s not the same friendship, nor do I want that.
It almost feels like getting back with your ex, which I am adamantly against (and they are not, demonstrating our oppositional approach to things). The foundation is the same, even if you’ve both grown significantly, you have that common pattern and ground that never truly vanishes. Even still, I decided it’s a risk worth slowly exploring.
At the End of a Friendship, You’re Probably Not Going to See Each Other’s Perspective
As a friendship paused (this is why I use that term over ending) this year, their partner said something in passing to me. The friend had mentioned it was so easy for me to leave. I stood silent in the doorway, words flooding but not coming out.
Yeah, it was (seemingly, to them) easy to leave. It was one of the numerous ways they’d pushed me away and expected me to come back the same way other relationships in their life did. They didn’t see the chats I had with others, trying to clean one iota of logic or time spent processing that this was where my line was revealed.
But I also didn’t see the hurt that my silence was causing them. And I made peace that I’m not going to see why they feel it’s a justified hurt.
Our relationship was meaningful. But meaningful doesn’t mean healthy. The silence and pain gave me the clarity I needed. And we’re just not going to see each other perspectives on this one.
What a mixed bag, right? Overall, lots of highs! But some friendships this year were more on the lesson side of the scale and I’ve got a growing appreciation for all of these contributions.
