While friendship itself has an air of eternity about it, seeming to transcend all natural limits, there is hardly any emotion so utterly at the mercy of time. We form friendships, and grow out of them. It might almost be said that we cannot retain the faculty of friendship unless we are continually making new friends. - Robert Hugh Benson
And that's just sad.
I don't know if its that sad. I was friends with a bunch of girls through Jr high and outgrew them. At our ten year reunion, they were just the same as ever. Hair, clothing, interest.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, the people I knew when I didn't go to church aren't suitable companions for me now, nor I for them. I knew I was in trouble the first time I went to happy hour, thinking I'd rather be at mass.
I live in hope of finding those with whom I can go both to mass and happy hour.
What?
+JMJ+
ReplyDeleteIn another combox, Terry, I mentioned that I had "broken up" with a friend whom I had known for fifteen years. Even my immediate family were shocked. Since then, I've also thought that if my sister and my brother and I weren't related, we wouldn't be around each other as much as we do. I can't say that we're "friends," because we probably only started to like each other in psychic self-defense--since living with someone you can't stand would slowly drive you mad. I can't even say that we're close. But there's something there. And about a year after my "break-up" with the aforementioned ex-friend, I missed her so much that I started wishing that we had been cousins. Because blood is thicker than water, and there's no way that I could have "dumped" her so cleanly and so coldly if we had been related. We don't grow out of blood ties.
We are such a mobile society. These days with social media it's a little easier to keep up with long distance friends, but it's still hard when you see people so seldom. On the other hand, there are friends who you may not see for years, but you pick up right where you left off when you do get together. And there are the friends who are such a joy to think about they bring a smile to your face when they come to mind. A person is blessed to have just a few true-blue friends who are there through thick and thin. They are the ones you would go to if tragedy struck.
ReplyDeleteThe Four Loves by CS LEWIS is good
ReplyDeleteMonsignor sounds like an extrovert.
ReplyDelete