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Sunday, March 15, 2009

"Friendship should be more than biting Time can sever." -Murder in the Cathedral, TS Eliot

Should. But isn't.

I spent a depressing amount of time reminiscing over past friendships this afternoon. I think of dear, close friends who I slowly pushed away in anticipation of their departure from my life. (Why must college be the equivalent of exile?) I think of dear, close friends who I pushed away knowing we never saw each other enough to remain close. (When your lives no longer intersect do you still need each other anyway?) I think of dear, close friends who taught me everything I know, but now seem like strangers, friends from a different lifetime, nothing in common anymore. (When you lose what you have in common, does the friendship lose its foundation?)

And I hate that I would even dare think and act in such a way with such a mindset, but while I grow closer to people in church and spend more time with the kids I've grown up with, I think of the kids from homeschool group, I think of former NCFCA groupies, I think of friends of the family, and I recall a bizarre ache that smarts of guilt and regret. Why did we grow apart so easily when we were so close? What did I do wrong? As I watch my friends grow up and leave for college, as I see the door slowly creeping shut on my involvement in NCFCA, as I observe friends move away and build new lives, as change alters the landscape of my comfortable life . . . must friends really be casualties, or is friendship really more than biting time can sever?

4 comments:

Kristen said...

Oh, Hayley, friendship is so wonderful! Time doesn't have to affect it. I have one friend who put it perfectly when we were leaving camp. We only had one week to invest in eachother and I haven't seen her since. She said, "See you in heaven!" Like it's just going to be tomorrow!

I really do think friendship is timeless. Nothing stops me from loving people who are leaving and I always remember friends who I've kinda lost contact with with warm thoughts. Especially when you're bonded in Christian love, wow, it's amazing! Biting time cannot sever that!

K-Mac said...

A friend of mine left NCFCA after last year and it felt like...we were ripped apart. I stopped talking to her, and sorta pushed her to the back of my mind.
And that was so incredibly stupid.
A few weeks (months? I don't know, time flies) back I started talking to her again, emailing and IMing and stuff, and I love her. And I realize that it was dumb of me to let space and time kill our friendship.

So while friendships *can* become casualties, I don't think they *have* to be. I don't think they should.

But then of course comes the question of how well you know the person. If you met them twice and rarely talked to them, does it matter if they leave your life forever?
I think it does. It might just be my sentimental side, but I don't like the idea of losing touch with *anyone*.

Well, I'll stop rambling now, it's kinda late and my thoughts are coming out all jumbled.
I love you.

Lil'NancyDrew said...

Hayley am i an ncfca groupie? i felt like that sometimes(!), and, don't worry about all that holding on stuff. people come and go, there are so many of us, but how do we enrich each others life's while we have the chance, that what i would ask. just a thought, love, Lilly H.

J.T. Edelblut said...

I've kinda been thinking about this with college decisions. Do I really want to go to a place where I don't know anyone and start my life entirely over just because I can get a slightly better education there? Or should I go to a college where my best friends are, even if I feel there is nothing there for me except them? Ugh.