Cyclical Friendships

We all have them: friends that come and go throughout your life. Maybe you chose different paths, live in different states, or don’t like each other’s chosen partner…  The reasons are myriad. Facebook and social networking sites have created new cycles for us. We are able to reconnect with people we haven’t seen in decades and reassess our friendship.

I seem to have two categories of friends in my life. The first are those rare few who have never left, who stuck with me through the bad haircuts, bad boyfriends and big glasses and are with me today, intimately involved in my life. They not only know my kids names, they know their birthdays.  They were there (at least in spirit) when my children were born and when my mother died. More than friends, they are my true family.

Then I have my “guy friends,” as Kevin calls them. They aren’t necessarily guys. It’s just that our friendship is more like that between two guys. We share a common interest or enjoy a common activity. Sometimes I have to tread lightly because all we share is this interest. In these cases I know that if a conversation strays unto religious or political topics we may be in trouble.

When that stage in our lives ends we grow apart; perhaps we’ll come together again, perhaps not. There is no animosity or a single breaking point – circumstances change for one or both of us and we move on along our individual paths.

I’ve had some wonderful “guy friends”. There was Melanie who taught me to ride horses in my early 30s. I was about ten years older than her. In fact, I took her out for her first legal drink. We were at different points in our lives. I was married with a job; she was still in college. I didn’t have any kids yet and so we spent a lot of time together, riding, teaching, and going to clinics with famous equestrians. It was fun and we truly enjoyed being together.  However, it didn’t extend comfortably outside of the barn.  I’ve had a lot of barn friendships over the years that ended when I left the barn.

Then there were the friends I made when Amanda was a baby. For the most part we all still live in the same town, but we have grown apart. It may be because Amanda has special needs and so she doesn’t attend our home school. It may be because some of them have gone back to work or simply found other interests now that their kids are in school all day. If I see them at all it’s a chance meeting at the grocery store or Target. I still like them. I’m always happy to see them and hear how their kids are doing. I also know that (for the most part) the “let’s get together soon” comments are sort of like when a guy would say “I’ll call you” at the end of a date. I’d be surprised if anything came of either.

Now I have Danielle and a whole new group of “guy friends.” These are women I like and admire. Strong, smart women balancing complex lives. However, I am 15 years (or more!) older than most of them. I know that under other circumstances they wouldn’t think to ask me out to a movie or over for drinks. We have no common frame of reference. Some of them were born the year that I started high school. Songs I grew up loving have always been “oldies” for them.  They didn’t know that Madonna was Catholic before she embraced Kabbalah (really?!?) They can’t remember a divided Germany with the Berlin Wall still standing or a united Soviet Union.

I’ve been down this road before. As we move deeper into summer I can already sense the shift – the start of the cycle. The kids will all be going to different schools in the fall. Some of the mothers are looking for jobs. Others are expecting another child. As the kids form new friendships so will we. Instead of talking to each other every day, now we talk once a week. Eventually it will taper off to once or twice a month and then several months may go by. We’ll still like each other. We’ll still have fun when we see each other, but we won’t see other often. Only time will tell whether we stay in touch or drift apart. And the cycle will start again with a whole new group of friends for each of us…