I don’t know if one is ever prepared for the ache that is felt when you leave the people that you love, including your friends.
You experience this first shift when you leave the familiarity of the friends in your hometown as you make way to your college years. During college you have just enough time to make friends, experience some of the best years of your life together, only to leave them a few years later as well.
Time passes and you get settled into a city that is unfamiliar and begin the process of making friends all over again. This time, you are an adult. Disclaimer, making friends as an adult is no easy task. Everyone is reaching their own milestones and trying to navigate adulthood. While also trying to figure out what mortgage they can afford and what a 401k is.
You make friends with your coworkers. It would be hard not to, you spend 40 waking hours with them each week. All the while you are crossing your fingers they don’t quit the job before you do.
I have been so incredibly fortunate to have people within my circle that have been with me through many stages of life. I can tell you, they make these friendship transition season a lot less hard.
Some of my very best friends I have known since before I could tie my shoes. While others I met bonding over traumatic roommate experiences and boy troubles.
The people I have spent too many late nights with. Hours on the phone with. Shared clothes, memories and time with.
Across all chapters of life, my core group of friends remains the same. While the distance between us is ever changing, the dynamics between myself and my friends is always constant.
They are my people.
So, why does it matter?
For the first time on my travels I am not in a city in which I have to say I don’t know a single person. I am lucky to have a friend that lives less than 30 minutes away. The last time we were this close, we were sharing a 12’ by 12’ first floor dorm room in Holden Hall. Over ten years ago now.
While I have grown accustomed to my own company, there is nothing like being around the people that know you. They know where you come from, why you act the way that you do and most importantly, they know your story.
They know you.
You can finally take a break from getting on your pulpit and preaching your background to yet another unfamiliar face for the umpteenth time this week alone.
The comfort is felt in the spaces between the unspoken words as you walk on a trail in Sedona together. And the look of a familiar face to give you a much needed break from your alone time.
There is something so special about being able to form platonic relationships that truly weather all seasons life. Knowing that you have found your life time friends when the distance and time between phone calls and visits don’t seem to matter.
You can go weeks, months, and sometimes years without spending time together and pick up on a random Tuesday as if no time has passed.
They are the people you call when things go south. They are the people you call to celebrate your wins with. They are the people that you can count on.
When I look back at the times in my life when I have needed someone to lean on, it has always been a friend. Seeing the good in me and in the situations that I am in long before I can. Talking me off of the ledge, supporting me when needed and providing me with some of the truest forms of love I have ever known.
I look forward to all of the friends that I have yet to meet. For as long as I can remember I have been told that I am chatty and friendly and am sure that establishing new friendships are far from over.
However, everyday I will be thankful for the foundation of friends that I am so incredibly lucky to call mine.
It’s nice to have a friend.