It's amazing how our friendships change as we get older. As kids, all you had to do was ask, "Hey, you wanna be my friend?" I kind of miss those days.
At the start of my teenage years, my dad moved me around a lot. I learned how to make friends quickly, but not really anything lasting. Basically I stuck with whoever wasn't in the popular crowd.
By the time high school rolled around, I had begun to perfect the art of being a social butterfly. Get to know everyone, but have a tight circle that you could always count on. Many of those in my "inner circle" are still in touch, and even if we don't see each other that often, we know we can always count on one another. There are several folks that I can go for months without speaking to, but once we pick up the phone, it's like a conversation that we never left. Those folks have a special place in my heart that will never go away.
Once we're out in the workplace, we forge new friendships, ones with people of all ages, races and beliefs. Primarily we tend to make our friends at work, but when we leave that job, we don't always take our friends with us. I have learned that, as adults, friendships tend to run their course. Our interests change as we grow and learn more about ourselves. One day you realize, I haven't talked to her in a while. You pick up the phone, and during the course of the conversation, you suddenly realize, I have nothing in common with this person anymore. Perhaps one of you got married and/or had a child. Maybe you do nothing but work overtime while they are still hard-partying. That doesn't mean you should completely cut them out of your lives--by no means am I saying that. You can still be friends with someone you no longer share many interests with, you just won't seem as close as before.
As a very social butterfly, I have made a lot of friends and acquaintances over the years (funny enough, everyone was a friend when I was younger. Now I have some friends but more acquaintances). Many have been in my life for quite some time, but others have come and gone. I have gone from making friends in a bar to meeting people through shared interests (if you live in the Columbus, GA area I recommend Columbus Freethinkers for stimulating intellectual conversation, or The League of Columbus for all things comic-related).
Diet Coke commissioned research on the new rules of female friendship and communication. If you get a chance, check out their findings. As a woman, most of it was not surprising at all to me, like that fact that women have more close friends than men (well duh). They mention how most women in my age range (25-35) try to have it all. Well yes, we want it all...some of us are just better at succeeding than others.
Per usual, I have no idea how to conclude my rambling thoughts. So I'll just leave you with this cliched yet undeniable truth: "Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for a while and leave footprints on our hearts. And we are never, ever the same."
