Friends for a time and place

28 Apr 2015

Friendships/Relationships have a time and a place

I have been lucky enough to have met a large number of people in my life. If Facebook is any indicator its probably over a thousand. However, I’m only in contact with a small percentage of those people at the present time.

I have old friends from camp as a kid, from my time abroad, from college, from sports teams, from the naval academy, from the Governor’s school for the Arts, and who knows where else. Very few of these relationships are currently active.
However, they remain what they were, great relationships that had a time and place.

I expect very few relationships in my life to be forever. I’m probably stuck with my family, a couple friends, and eventually a partner, but otherwise my other relationships have remained in the space they were born and nurtured.

That’s how it should be.

It’s natural for a relationship to be born from a specific setting, and it’s natural that it might not survive outside of that setting. The fact that it hasn’t actively survived all of life’s changes doesn’t lessen it’s significance.

I try not to worry if the nature of a current relationship changes or fades. What it was is worthy of my respect and appreciation, and you never know when an old relationship may flourish again in new setting.