“A man of too many companions will inevitably come to ruin, but you will always have a friend that sticks closer than a brother.” -Proverbs 18:24
When I was in Kindergarten, I had best friends. When I was in elementary school, I had best friends. When I was in Junior High, I had best friends. When I was in High School, I had best friends. When I was in college, I had best friends.
Today, I have best friends.
The distinguishing factor between all of those “best friends”, is that at no stage in my life up to this point have those “best friends” remained the same collection of people.
One of the things that I believe young people are never adequately prepared for growing up is the prospect of losing friendships. People come into your life at certain stages. You spend a lot of time with them and grow close. Then one day you realize things have changed. These same lives that once ran concurrently into each other at the same place in time have now veered off down different roads to different destinations. Your lives are no longer intertwined, and the time spent together fades into memories.
How do you cope with losing people that once meant so much to you? How do you come to grips with the void they left on your life? If you are dealing with this, you are not alone. It’s a common tale.
As you navigate from your younger years into adulthood and beyond it is inevitable that you will lose touch with people that you formerly used to talk to everyday. Surprisingly, despite all of our technology, our social media, and the innumerable other methods that give us the capability to communicate with others at any moment, I feel that people are actually more disconnected than ever.
It’s rare to have somebody call or want to talk in person nowadays. Instead we all keep up with the events in others lives by “following” social media posts. (Even this is becoming a challenge as social media is now clogged with so much other content outside of people simply sharing their lives.) Pictures of vacations. Snapchat and Instagram stories of daily activities. Tweets of highs and lows. These are the things that connect us now.
The thing is, this only gives the illusion that some friendships are still just as close as they once were. When in reality, you’ll find that’s not the case. It becomes increasingly more difficult as you get older to find the TIME to devote to hanging out with friends as you once did. People move, work all the time, get married, have a family, and go chase down their dreams. It’s usually never intentional, but it pulls you away from the life you lived before when you spent most of your time with these other people.
I have gone through many “best friends” during my 37 years of time spent on this Earth. At every single point in my life all the way up until right now, I have always had a friend or friends that I could rely on. Tell them anything. I was certain they’d always be there as a part of my life. Until they weren’t. It happens slowly.
One day you just can’t seem to find the time to talk as much. The next week gets super busy and chaotic. You text them or they text you and one of you doesn’t respond right away. An apology text gets sent later to say you’re sorry for not responding. You’ve been busy with work, or studying, or events, or whatever came up. Before you realize it, several weeks have passed by and you haven’t seen this person. The friend starts to drift into simply being an acquaintance. You keep meaning to hit them up, to find time to hang out, but it never materializes.
Then before you know it bigger things start happening. You get a promotion at work, or take a new job. You move to a new city. You start studying for a higher level degree. You get into a new relationship. Whatever it may be. It all pulls the friends further and further apart. It hurts.
Months pass. Years pass. You come to know that you are no longer the same person you were in your younger years. You aren’t interested in many of the things you once were. You don’t keep the same hobbies. You probably don’t have the same personality even. Things change. People change. Friendships and relationships change.
It sucks for awhile when you come to the full realization that some people you used to call “best friends”, people you thought would stick by your side throughout all the important changes in your life, are now nowhere to be found. There is no one to blame for this. It was mutual. Your lives just don’t fit together in the same way they used to. Former best friends move on and make new best friends, with values that more align with the people they’ve become.
The biggest thing to keep in mind here is this: If you aren’t changing and evolving, then you aren’t living. You can’t stay stagnant, stuck in the same place your entire life. Life is about learning, growing, experiencing, and doing everything that you can while you can. Having dreams is what makes life tolerable, and you should always chase them.
The reality of this is that sometimes you are going to be too busy. You are going to lose touch with old friends. Heck, you might even lose touch with some family in the same manner. It might make you sad for a moment in time, but the memories will always remain. Know that the time you did have together was as important as anything in your lives at that moment. You served as a vital piece of each others lives and just because that part of your lives is over, it doesn’t diminish the time you had together one bit.
To the friends I was once close with, I truly hope you are all doing well. I have never wanted anything but the best for you, then and now. If I grew distant, I’m sorry. If I haven’t been the best at communicating and planning time together, I’m sorry. I have been evolving, as I’m sure you have, too. At the end of the day, I hope you’re happy.
Thank you for your years of friendship and memories. I will always cherish them. I am eternally thankful to have had you as a friend when I needed it the most. I am proud of the people we’ve become because of it. It’s OK that we’ve gone our separate ways. Much of life is about coping with loss, but also about finding the gains that come from that loss.
My gains are abundant. Much love.
The Nominal Man 
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