Monday, June 13, 2011

Friends

Beware random thoughts to come. I'm not sure where all these thoughts and feelings are coming from but I just have to put them down on "paper" so please forgive me if some of this doesn't make sense.

Tonight while watching the Bachelorette (totally boring but we will leave that for another post) I started looking back at all 1009 photos that I am tagged in on Facebook. I started to think about all the friends that I have all over the world and how relationships and friendships change over time. Of course people and friendships change overtime but I got to thinking about what do some of these people mean to me, how do they fit in my life, what was their purpose in my life. 

There is a great quote that started to weigh on my mind as I was looking though these pictures

"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." 
-Unknown  

I have very different friendships with every one of my friends. Jason often accuses me of calling people "friends" when I have only met them once but that is how I live my life. I don't believe that people can have too many friends. I do believe that it is ok to call someone a friend after only meeting them once. I also believe in the quote above that some people come and go quickly and some stay for a while but either way I am not the same person I was before I met that person. What I wish is to know if that person is suppose to come and go quickly or if it is a friendship I am suppose to fight for and keep our friendship alive.

For example I have several different groups of friends. High school, college, sorority sisters, Greek Life at ESU, communication (my major), camp, grad school, fraternity/sorority professionals, UNI, Jaycees. I like categories. I like keeping my friends in their category and I don't like the categories to cross. I am also really bad at fighting for friendships. Once that phase of my life is over, for the most part I let those friendships go. The are a few exceptions to that rule and sometimes that makes me sad. Sometimes I wonder if I should fight harder to keep friendship alive. Don't get me wrong, I have only once wrote someone out of my life. For the most part my friendships don't end they are just put on pause until we have a reason to interact again. At any minute I could call one of those past friendship and have a great conversation but that is just it, I don't pick the phone up, I don't write, I don't make an effort.

Now I can't totally be to blame because those other people don't pick up the phone, don't write and don't make an effort but if I am the one wanting the friendship to continue should I be the one to open that door? This brings me back to my original question: what friendships am I suppose to fight for and what friendships are only suppose to be there for a short time. 



1 comment:

Kim Airhart said...

Friendships are so important to me. I to have many different "friends" people that I met once and maybe don't talk to a lot but I still call them my friends.
I have a group of girls that I have been friends with for 20+ years and it's hard to maintain those friendships at times because everyone gets wrapped up in their own life and families. I do get hurt when a friend doesn't make an effort to maintain our friendship but I guess I could try harder too.