Move along

I always have the ridiculous expectation and naive belief that every single one of my friendships are going to last for the rest of my life. I felt like that about my friends growing up, my friends in junior high, my friends in high school, and even my friends now, in college. I am the kind of person that will be loyal to you until the day I die. A friendship isn't just a nice label, to me it's a promise. A promise you will be there for the person as much as you can be. A promise you will try to make the person laugh, make the person smile. A promise to want happiness for the other person. A promise to communicate when things are going rough, and to apologize when you've hurt the other. A friendship is a promise to care, to defend you. Friendship to me isn't just something stupid. My friends are my family. My friends mean the world to me. Many times in my life I have had friends there for me when I didn't have family to turn to. I believe that loyalty is one of the most important parts of friendship, and that is something that is built into who I am.

I don't want to say [or admit, rather] that some of these expectations are too much. These are values I hold myself to, and I would hope people who call me their friend feel the same way. I don't expect the relationship to be perfect. I don't expect a perfectly smooth road, without bumps or detours along the way. I don't expect it to be painless, or easy. I know friendships take work. But I feel like they're worth it.

I guess the problem is that I hold this expectation to all of my friends. But not every friend is on the same level. I have my closest friends, my best friends. These are the friends I tell everything to, that know my past, that hold me accountable, that I talk to every single day and think about and pray for constantly. I have good friends, that I spend a little less time with, still tell a lot to, but maybe not my deepest stuff. I have friends that I just like to spend time with because they make me happy, or make me laugh. I have friends that are friends with my friends or my group, and we smile and talk and have a good time when we are together. And then I have friends that I hug and check in with every once in a while, and say a prayer for when they cross my mind. Friends aren't just all on the same field, it is very different.

The problem is, sometimes I expect a large number of my friends to be GOOD friends. I expect them to tell me lots, be there for me, understand, and last but certainly not least, stick around. Every time I have had a friendship fade away or just completely fail, I marked it as a huge mistake on me, and I struggle to let it go. I couldn't count on my fingers AND my toes how many people I miss and wish I had done things differently with. And how fair is that to me? Yes, I've made mistakes. But so have they. And you know what, maybe it didn't have to be a mistake. Maybe that just wasn't a friendship that was supposed to last.

It is so hard to say "maybe God didn't mean for that friendship to be forever." It is so hard to say that maybe a friend wasn't supposed to be my friend until we die. It is next to impossible for me to let people go. Maybe because they mean the world to me. Maybe because I have poured so much of myself into them. Maybe because I am scared if I let them go, others will leave. Scared that I will end up all alone with NO friends. But the fact is that people are going to come and go. And that is just something I have to accept. And not the kind of accept that means I'll just get over it and move on. The kind of accept that means I'll be able to look at the relationship and still smile. The kind of accept that means I am grateful for the friendship, whether it lasted as long as I expected it to or not.