Have you had that friend or friend(s) with whom you were once inseparable while you were in the same environment say same school, church, name it and you were certain you would be friends for life? But then, your environment changes; maybe you finish school and over time you notice that your bond is slowly weakening. Before you know it, you are thinking twice before texting this friend(s) because he or she seems to be more of a stranger than your girl or boy depending on the familiar names you had for each other.
Well if you haven’t, good for you! At least now after reading this post it won’t be a bitter pill to swallow if it does happen. It has happened to me and at first I tried to prevent nature from taking it’s course. I tried keeping the friendship together by maintaining the frequent calls and texts, proposing meet ups and so on in the hope that things would go back to normal. They never did.
What I did not realise was that sometimes friendships are meant to be seasonal. Not everyone you come across in life is destined to be in your life forever. Some people are brought to help you get to a certain destination, others to teach you certain lessons, then there are those meant to walk through the entire journey with you.
A few years back around the time I had just completed high school, I was having a conversation with a friend who is older than me by say 8 or more years. She would often offer me a ride home from a class we shared and enjoyed sharing stories and giving me advise during the journey. During one of those conversations, she asked me; “How many friends do you have? Those you consider your true friends?” I made a mental calculation and at that time they were more than 10. I gave her my answer and she smiled and said as you go through life you will be lucky if you can count up to 3.
I could not really imagine it but took her words seriously nonetheless. Around that time, I was also introduced to the concept of seasonal friendships. Now you can imagine how horrifying it was for me to imagine that a friend I called best friend could possibly be a stranger to whom I had little or no contact with in years to come and worse yet not for a reason I could put my finger on but that this friendship could just die a natural death. I vehemently refused to accept the fact but reality caught up with me over the years and the two concepts were proven true.
Today my understanding of the concepts boil down to; the 3 friends whom I was told I would be lucky to have are the ones brought in my life to go through life with me while the best friends who we would naturally lose bonds with over time, were brought for a season with a mission.
Once I understood and accepted this, I stopped fighting to keep friendships together long after they were overdue. Instead, I would take time and think of the lessons, goals or even problems I encountered during our friendship and would accept and make peace with the end that had come preparing for the new that was on the way.
I realised that seasonal friendships as much as they have a short life span, new ones get formed very fast. Maybe the old ones end to make room for the new! You will meet new people every other day in your current environment and make new friends every so often as a result but the permanent bond type of friends, they will be few and slow to come by but once they come it is forever with them.
What are your thoughts on friendship? Do you have a different opinion? Would you like to add on to this, I would love to hear your experiences.
Love,
Life Diaries
Life diaries 