Evolving Friendships

From the age of one to thirteen, I had a BFF named Beth.  We did everything together, and confided everything in each other.  When my parents were going through a divorce I practically lived in her house, and when her parents were having issues with Beth's older brother, issues that completely disrupted their family life, she practically lived in mine. 

We swore that we would never lose touch and that we would be, literally, best friends FOREVER.

Then we moved from New York to Boston, and Beth became Ultra-Orthodox. Our lives and our belief systems diverged, and after attempts to stay in contact via snail mail - remember that this was the pre-internet and social media generation - we drifted and she became a pleasant memory for me.

It took me until post college to understand that if a friendship changes or fades, it does not reflect badly on me as a person.  We as human beings evolve individually and as a peer group over time, and some connections that once made sense lose their focus and their purpose.  And that's OK, perfectly normal for most of the population of Gaea.

It's the reason couples get divorced, they become different people and if they don't work at it, they fall out of love.

I met one of my current closest friends at the pregnancy and birth preparation class at Hadassah Hospital.  Our daughters were conceived on the same day through fertility treatments, and they were born a week apart.  For the first several years of their lives, we four girls hung out together, and I imagined that these friendships would last FOREVER.

In the last year or so, because the girls attend different school program and because we see each other less, that aspect of our connection has fallen apart, and for a while it made me sad.  I resolved however that it should not affect my adult friendship, and last night the two Mommies got sitters and met for dinner; the first time in a long time.

The food was yummy, the restaurant warm and cozy, and the conversations wonderful.  It is the kind of relationship that is quite simply familiar and comfortable, where you immediately slip into patterns of trust; my own little Field of Dreams.

We even joked at one point that we will still be friends at the age of 90...