A note on friendships

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People come in and out of our lives every day but there are some that find a place in our hearts.  Friendships blossom for so many different reasons and serve so many different purposes.  We laugh together, we cry together and we share moments of our lives together.  The love we share with friends fills us with the confidence we need to take a leap of faith, calms us when we’re fearful and often has us laughing non-stop.  Friends often become our chosen family and we trust them with our secrets and our heart’s greatest desires because we view our friends to be our guardians and confidantes.  Friendship is a shapeshifter taking many different forms and colours, each one unique.  Here’s a note on friendships and some of the types of friendships I’ve experienced.

Friendship as fluid as water

Some friendships flow like a stream from spring.  They quench the thirst, hydrate the heart and nourish the soul.  They run quickly, serve a purpose and then flow onwards.

These friendships are often a result of circumstance.  Whether that common denominator is school, university, working in the same office, etc, these relationships are often the type in which you become fast friends.  They blossom really quickly and they are so much fun. 

As naturally occurs with a running stream, however, they sometimes part and run on.  If you lose the common denominator, the bond that held you together may dissolve and that’s okay.  Some friendships will run the course of a lifetime, others a few seasons.  Regardless, it’s always worth wishing those friends well, acknowledge the great moments and the value that they added to your life and then run your own course.  

Friendships as sturdy as mountains

Some friendships are so strong and sturdy that they live through all seasons and all manners of life changes.  These are the friendships that ground you, give you perspective and guide you through the winding paths and journeys of life over many, many years.  These friendships are true gems.  When you celebrate your victories, these friends will feel as triumphant as you.  When you suffer loss, they will shed tears with you.  When they see you happy, they are themselves, happy.  This relationship grows stronger and stronger as the years tick on and more and more history is added to the memory banks.  Looking back is as sweet as looking forward with friends like these.

Long-distance friendships

The way that my life has played out so far, I’ve noticed that living in different countries has no bearing on the quality of a true friendship.  I have made the most incredible friendships with people that I’ve never lived in the same country as.  We’ve never had the luxury of simply popping over for tea on a whim but, through all life’s highs and lows, we’ve stayed so closely connected that the space between us has not detracted from the quality of the friendship.  This category blows my mind a little bit.  I probably had a pre-conceived notion that you needed to be in some kind of close proximity to your friend in order to maintain the relationship but that’s really not true.  Long-distance friendships, in my experience, have an extremely high success rate and form some of my most valuable friendships. 

Timing is everything… or is it?

There are some friendships that involve so many hours spent together, texts every day and calls non-stop.  Those that involve shopping together, nails together, everything together.  It’s incredible to have someone to share all those moments with but there are also friendships that are just as valuable but require almost the opposite amount of maintenance.  These are the friendships that may mean meeting up every few months but when you get together, you pick up right where you left off last time you saw each other.  These may not make a lot of sense to everyone, but I’ve definitely got a few of these friendships and I love them.  You don’t need to see or speak to a friend every day or week to be close to them.  Sometimes the frequency of seeing a friend doesn’t have the slightest impact on the quality of the relationship and it’s a good feeling.

Not every recipe for friendship is the same but, together, theys sure make one great recipe book.  At the end of the day, all friendships deserve to be treasured.  Whether they were only for a season or for a lifetime.  Perhaps you’ve only just become friends or you’ve been friends for years.  Whether you see one another every weekend or once a year, the swelling in your heart when you think of your friend is what really matters.  All these relationships add to our lives and enrich them dearly.  Our friends are our sounding boards, cheerleaders, coaches and secret keepers.  If you’ve taken the time to read my note on friendships, why not let your friends know how much you love them today.