Lost Friends

Well, this little musing is going to take a slightly different turn than I had expected when I woke up this morning. You see, last night I sent this blog link to all of my friends (it's a daunting number and one reason I gave into such a public display of myself) and family. One "friend" has me blocked from sending her emails. Why this surprised me, I don't know since we haven't talked for months and things were not going well when we stopped communicating. The story is a long one and one that most people in my life know. For those of you who don't, suffice it to say that we were friends for 11 years but near the end (for now I must think of it as truly ended), there were obstacles that neither of us could get past to allow us to continue being friends like we were.

I have heard that, as adults, we are lucky to have one or two really close friends with whom we can share everything. As kids we would call them our best friends. I have never completely liked that phrase unless I could say, "one of my best friends," because I consider myself to have more than one who fits in that category. I won't even try and list them here because I know that I would forget someone and tick them off. lol I am constantly fascinated with how human relationships work (hence it showing up in my dissertation, a subject for another day). Each and every one of my friendships is precious to me and they are all unique even though some have similarities of context. I tend to hold on to friends for as long as I can. And I never forget anyone even when there has been no contact for a while.

If you look at the comments from the last entry, you'll see two names. Samantha is my newest friend and I already consider her a dear one. We are still testing out the waters but have discovered a lot of connections. It's fun. The other is Rose. We went to high school together (my God, has it been 16 years since we graduated?!?) and have managed to remain good friends even though we tend to fall off the face of the earth every now and then. But when we reconnect, it's always as if the time never went by. One or both of us apologizes for being slack, we catch up, and we move on with where we are. No worries. I have gotten used to that because most of the people in my life are always elsewhere. (I'll do an email tangent another time.)

Anyway, I thought that was what was going on with the other friend. Even though we'd been having problems, I thought we'd just stepped away from each other for a while because of various things. Guess I was wrong. It makes me sad. I could push the issue but I'll let her go since that is what she seems to want. At least I have memories -- good and bad -- to cherish even if I have lost the friend.