All my life I've been blessed with having great friends. Amazingly blessed. And not just a great friend, but lots of them. I grew up with a big family, and my sister and I have always been super tight, but there have always been loads of friends at our houses too. Girls who had keys to my parents house and a bed in my study. Girls who knew my closet better than I did, and who knew where I kept all my huge sunglasses. Girls who had guys drop them off at my house on Sunday morning after a night out and did the walk of shame across my front porch and into my parents' living room. Where my parents applauded them. (True story.)
We'd stay up late and talk. We'd have nights with themes like "High heels, low morals." We had summer make out contests (I always lost). Sometimes we'd just buy an ice cream cake, a bottle of wine and sit on a dock on Banks Channel. We'd sleep three across on a futon or two in a twin bed in dorm rooms.
We called ourselves the Usuals, because we were all usually together. (You can laugh, it's cool.) But the Usuals were my first loves.
In fact, I loved all my high school friends so incredibly much, I didn't focus much on making college friends - I would much rather spend my weekends and summers with the girls from Wilmington.
But then college ended, and within a year I met Mr. Business. And life changed. Definitely for the better, but it changed. Quickly, he became my best friend. And I still loved (and do love) my best friends, but nights of "high heels and low morals" ended. And so did spending most of my free time in Wilmington.
So while my relationship with Mr. Business strengthened, my best friends' relationships with each other did too. And my relationships with them got pushed to the back burner.
But my best friends are all still best friends with each other, and I feel like an afterthought. I miss being my best friends' best friend. I miss the phone calls when something important or not important happens in their lives. And I miss feeling like I have someone to call when something big - or trivial - happens in my life.
I don't know what all this means...I feel like this is normal to go through. What do y'all think? In order to grow up, do we have to grow apart? Even a little? And what have you done to keep old relationships strong?
I know exactly what you mean- a lot of my friendships have changed lately and I do not have the same "best friends" that I had before. It's definitely hard.
ReplyDeleteThe worst part is that our men-folk know nothing about this, their relationships seem to stay exactly the same! Unfair!