Friends Come And Go

For some reason I’ve been thinking a lot about my friendships, both past and present, lately. Now that I’m closer to 60 than 50 in my life I realize that there’s a lot of water under the bridge in terms of my friend relationships and things have not turned out like I expected them to on that front. But that’s an important truism in life. Things rarely turn out like you expect them to which can be good and bad. What I’ve found is that even the strongest friendships will come and go in your life and it’s not always because of tragedy or some dramatic event like a passionate argument or a betrayal. Many friendships tend to just fade out as people mature, make changes in their lives and establish new priorities.

At this point in my life I’m down to a couple of close friends who I don’t see very often as we’re in different parts of the country. Those two friends happen to know of each other but are not friends themselves. One friend, Richard, I consider very close because I’ve known him for about 35 years and from time to time we catch up either via phone calls or texts. The other friend, James, I’ve known for about 30 years and as it happens we work for the same company together albeit in different locations. We talk about work often and often that leads to discussions about how each of us and our families are doing. I see James in person a couple of times per year and I saw Richard in person about a year ago when I stayed for a weekend with his family. Before that I saw Richard about every couple of years. Beyond James and Richard I have a handful of friends, many of whom I knew from prior service in the military, who I keep in touch with over text message from time to time. We often kick around the idea of some kind of reunion but it never happens.

The bottom line is that I’ve found that in life, at least in my life, that friends come and go and that being the case it’s not worth fretting over such things too much as people need to be free to manage their lives as they see fit.

My first close friend I can remember was Brian who lived across the street from me in New York. There were a number of kids in the neighborhood but my mom and his mom were friends so I think that made it a natural fit. Brian and I were thick as thieves all through elementary school. He was the very youngest of several children which was similar to me as the youngest of three kids by at least six years. Brian and I had all sorts of adventures that started out on our block, moved to the park about half a mile away as we got a bit older and even extended to things like going to baseball games at Shea Stadium and taking the train into “the city”, which meant Manhattan. This was all before high school. Brian’s dad was a mounted police officer in New York so we figured if we ever needed assistance on our adventures a cop would be willing to help. I couldn’t imagine not being friends with Brian when I was older. Well, when it was time for high school Brian made a different choice than I did. Then we naturally saw less of each other on a daily basis. In 10th grade Brian got himself a girlfriend with whom he was very serious right from the start. Although we still hung out and had little adventures from time to time it was never the same.

My second close friend was Michael who started attending my elementary school in sixth grade. His dad was originally from New York but the family had most recently moved from Florida. I was kind of relieved when Michael showed up because I had been the new kid the year before in fifth grade because my mom transferred my to Catholic school from Public school. Now Michael was the new kid. I had no problems befriending Michael because I hadn’t made any friends up until then at my new school. On the one hand it was because I was a shy, withdrawn kid and on the other hand it was because the kids at my new school were not very hospitable. At that time I was still friends with Brian who attended the same school but he was in a different classroom than I was. Michael and I ended up being friends all the way through college and into early adulthood. Unlike me, he ended up earning the respect of the other boys and girls for, for two main reasons, but never really got on great with them. The reasons were that the girls considered him handsome, which caused the boys to give him trouble, and he knew how to fight, which caused the boys to leave Michael alone. Needing to fight to get respect in elementary school, and especially Catholic school, sounds ridiculous now but that’s what my neighborhood was like.

Over the years Michael and I became very close. I knew his family very well and sometimes spent holidays with them. Michael’s dad was a business owner who loved fishing and eventually Michael’s dad had a boat docked on the east end of Long Island. I had my first deep sea fishing experiences on the ocean with Michael and his dad. When we were in high school Michael’s cousin moved to the neighborhood from Colorado and I became friends with him as well. Michael and I ended up going to different high schools but we still remained tight. It’s surprising because Michael was ahead of me in terms of things with girls and had the distinct advantage of being considered handsome. So even though Michael had girlfriends in high school, and I never did, he never got serious with them and it didn’t impede our friendship. Michael and I attended Boy Scouts together and later both worked (along with Michael’s cousin) for his dad’s construction company. Later Michael and I attended the same college and at one point we took a road trip all the way from New York City to Miami, Florida. By that point Michael and I were as close to brothers as friends could be. Eventually that changed.

After college Michael moved in with his college girlfriend (who would later become his wife) in a small apartment in downtown Manhattan. I got my first job after college working nights as a manager at a trucking company in Brooklyn. Michael and I were still friends and still hung out from time to time but it wasn’t like it had been in earlier years. Around that time I made some dramatic changes in my life. Changes that took me to California for a short time and then into the US Army for 5 years. It was at the beginning of that time that I met Richard before I went to California. I also met my friend James while serving in the Army. I didn’t see Michael much during that five year period but I did return to New York to be best man at his wedding. Eventually I returned from the Army and lived in the New York area. Not long after that I met the lady who would be my wife (until a divorce 13 years later) and eventually have children with. The priorities for my growing family once again took me away from my closest friends. Now, I figured that we’d always be able to reconnect. To get together every so often and bond over old times. Kind of like you see in some movies. But something changed, and I still don’t know what, between Michael and I. When I tried to reconnect with Michael, after both of us had two kids and I was divorced, he talked about getting together but would never follow through. Not wanting to push too hard I withdrew.

Along the way in life I’ve had some other friends worth mentioning. There was a group of friends, guys and girls, who I went to high school with. We’d go to concerts. We participated in a bowling league. We’d go to movies. We’d go to house parties. There was a group of people who I worked with at a large consulting firm after my time in the Army. We spent a lot of time working together and going through the company training and they became a more mature version of my high school friends. There was my friend Jason who I was pretty close with in high school and later college when I wasn’t hanging with Michael. Ironically, I became close with Jason’s best friend Jorge and we’ve still kept in touch for many years. In fact, I traveled with my then wife to Jorge’s wedding at an exotic location about 20 years ago. We still text message back and forth occasionally and wish each other happy birthday and the like. Finally, I had a small group of friends (who I knew via James) that I did some nice traveling with in the early 2000s. We went to Italy twice and Spain once. We spent New Year’s Eve of 1999 (12/31/1999) in New Orleans and braved the dreaded Y2K transition together.

Sadly, or perhaps matter of factly, almost none of those people are in my life today. I’m not mad at Michael, or any of my old and close friends who’ve drifted away, because they’ve done nothing to me to be mad about. Are they mad at me? Perhaps, but I hope not. I’ve learned that in life the following things are true. People change. Priorities change. Life goes on. I realize that I could have stayed in New York City or close by and perhaps that would have meant that things would be different between me and some of my old friends. I could have made different career choices or different life choices in general. Choices that kept me on one place. Obviously when a person marries and starts having children different priorities come into focus. The time comes when these priorities change for everyone around you. Career choices are a contributing factor and I’ve certainly made career choices that have put distance between myself and people I was close friends with. Another big change during my adult life has been in the area of technology. With technology people have ways of connecting that don’t require seeing each other in person…for better or worse. Perhaps the value of friendship has changed with the ability to be someone’s “friend” virtually. I think it has.

One other choice I’ve made, for better or worse, is not to be engaged in the whole online friendship thing. I disengaged from that in 2018 for a few reasons. First off, I had old high school friends wanting to engage, some of which were doing so for selfish reasons. Like promoting their Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) businesses! In one case I had someone from my old neighborhood trick me into connecting only for that person to start sending me threatening messages. There was family drama, including issues related to my ex-wife and divorce. Finally, I realized that managing online relationships was consuming an inordinate amount of my time and become an untenable distraction. I figured that if people really were interested in keeping up with me they’d call, text or email. Sure enough, some people have done that, but most haven’t. For better or worse I made my choice and I’m sticking to it. The online friendship stew has plenty of ingredients and I don’t believe I’m needed in the mix. I’m sure that re-engaging in that melee would be bizarre and exhausting.

I admit that I’m sad that I no longer have any kind of relationship with some of my friends from the past. I think there’s a tendency in general to lionize the past. I used to get antsy when I was a kid and my parents would talk with their friends about the past. Now I have an idea what that was all about. I’ve seen in movies stories where old friends get together for a big reminiscence or one last hurrah and that does seem nice to me. Sure, such a thing could devolve into an emotional disaster. Nothing is guaranteed in this life though. Just about everything we do could be great or could be awful. The one thing I do know is that I don’t want to force anything. If friends from the past want to re-enter my life in some way I’ll be open to it. If they don’t then that’s okay too. I will keep on keeping on. I’ll remember the past a bit when I feel appropriate but also look forward to what’s to come in the future. I suppose that’s the overarching message of this post. Don’t force things. Remember fondly good things in the past. Look forward to the future.