Here's to the good times we had

I think I’m out growing my friends.

Every time we meet it’s the same inanities we talk about, recycling the same old tired topics again and again. Each tedious session must have the requisite “Remember when…” stories until you get so sick of them you wonder what was the big deal about the oft repeated memory anyway.

It’s about being sentimental I suppose, holding on to the fraying threads of friendship buoyed by the fading memories when being together meant so much more. Holding on even though the passage of time has taken its toll and you’ve become virtual strangers with an increasingly pervasive contempt for each others previously charming idiosyncrasies. The once lively conversations we used to hold have now morphed into painfully plodding, dull drudgery.

These people used to be important to me, but perhaps I’ve come to that point in time when I realize that they’ve slipped down the scale of important people in my life and vice-versa.

And yet, and yet, and yet, instead of letting go we keep trying to recapture that elusive moment in time when we, together, were the centre of the universe, when we, together, were exactly where we wanted to be. This is a recipe for disaster because it doesn’t ever work and we just end up disappointed and frustrated with each other. And so we’ve begun to fade away, seeing less and less of each other, gradually forgetting each others birthdays and replacing each others numbers on speed dial.

But herein lies the paradox: sometimes, just sometimes, people you grew apart from can come back into your life unexpectedly and it can be like they never left in the first place. And somehow it can become so much better than before.

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I think with friendship, like with any other relationship, there are peaks and valleys. And it all has to do with timing and similar or complimentary circumstances; if they’re favourable then the friendship blossoms and thrives. But friendship is also a volatile, dynamic creature because there are so many variables involved. The tiniest tweak can send it spiraling downwards.

We like to believe in lifelong friendships and forever afters, but I’m beginning to think that’s too idealistic, like looking at the world through rose-tinted glasses. Pretending we still know the strangers we call ‘friends’ when in reality we’ve become poles apart.

People change. Gracefully letting go would be the mature, dignified thing to do.

If only it were that easy.