Friendship

In preschool and grammar school friendship falls into our laps. In the sandbox or on the swings, sharing a dump truck or a doll common ground is found. Parents meet, exchange numbers and invitations to birthday parties and slumber parties are soon to follow.

Has we age and reach our teen years the social pool has been diluted. The class of thirty that we knew fairly well has been absorbed into a larger class of five to six hundred. Friends that we have know since pre-school may not even attend the same high school. Old friends fade into the mist as new friendship develop from the fertile soil of athletics, scholastics and hormones.

Before much time as past college appears on the horizon. New friends and old are scattered across the country by the winds of change. New paths are chosen. New directions are found. Some relationships have survived the turmoil from preschool thru college. Others may be new but a strong foundation has been built.

Graduation and promotions, marriage and children, all of life's responsibilities become part of our essence. Marriage and parenting bring new friends and new circles. Some of the old have drifted away. Finding new circles to swim in. If we are lucky a few of the classics have survived. They have aged like a fine wine. Meant to be savored and appreciated.

As we move to new neighborhoods, transfer to new offices or begin second careers with new corporations the friendship cycle changes once again. Something is different though. The pool is no longer expanding but shrinking. New friends appear to be mere acquaintances. They are great for lunch, a movie, office gossip but the closeness that developed with relative ease through schools and careers has become more complicated. Everyone already seems to have a "best friend". The two o'clock in the morning the world is ending I need someone to talk to type of friend.

Those of us who have that "best friend" are blessed. We have made it through three or four decades with somebody who shares memories and history with us. That in and of itself is a precious gift and one we should embrace wholeheartedly.