The Seasons of Friendships

I can remember a time when I’d have said I had heaps of friends. Being a chatty child, I would make friends at the drop of a hat. I’d have 20–30–40 friends at each of the various things I was part of — school, choir, church, netball, drama. Hundreds of friends.

And we’ve all experienced those that have come and gone fleetingly in the form of work colleagues, the broad circle of school/work/social ‘friends’. But as we get older, friendships get harder to navigate for a host of reasons. 

Someone exceptionally wise once said:Reason friends

You might have been tempted, in light of the quote above, to think ‘lifetime’ friendships outrank the others. I know I used to. Right up until my friendship soulmate upped and died on me, only a handful of years after we met. Needless to say, I was devastated. Despite her having passed away nearly four years ago. I still miss her terribly.

She was my ride-or-die and we fought together for her survival until the very end. Although granted, she had a much harder (and shorter) road to endure. Mine was less arduous but is now so much longer to traverse without her beside me.

Even though she still feels, to my soul, like a ‘forever’ friend, she was also a ‘reason’ friend. Whilst she fought for her own life, she also fought for mine. It was her very wise counsel that got me the surgical help I needed to recover from a life-altering accident.

And for that, I will be forever in her debt. She saved me. Sadly, I couldn’t do the same for her. My ‘reason’ to her was to help her die well. I’d like to think I achieved that — as hard as it was.

The hardest thing about being a woman of a certain age now (i.e., I can say I’ve very likely lived more than half my life), is that death is likely to occur with increasing frequency amongst the people we care about most. It sucks, but it’s more a fact of life.

D’oh, just when I’d finally figured out who my go-to’s were.

Season Friends

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