Keeping A Friendship Alive: Standing at The Shore Waiting

Diane & Linda playing in Lake Tahoe. around 1950

Here is a lesson you can teach your children as they get older and older and remind them through out their adult life. Friendships evolve, grow, retract and by large disappear as life goes on. The hard truth is we all build and nurture friendships to help us feel connected, grounded or just to feel like we are leaving a mark on this planet or in history. The painful truth is all the work will only sustain a small % of friendships that will last a year or even decades. Before you start talking about life long friendships. Those friendships are two things, one, only a small % of humans on this planet find a friend in childhood and keep that friendship till the day they die. And, two, the majority of us who build these friendships see it ebb and flow throughout our lifetimes.

Lets take an example from one of my mother’s life long friends. A friend that actually finds it’s roots in generations in both of their families. My great-grandmother came over from the Azores in the early 1900s and befriended another mother on the ship. Both women were born and raised on the same island, named Teracerra. The women would spend the early party of the 20th century cultivating a friendship and so would their first born daughters. These friendships would carry on through two more generations, with my grandmother and my mother.

Friendships  like these are a perfect example of how they float in and out of the shore of closeness. Yes there long periods of closeness are great moments. Then there are the periods where the friendship is challenged as our lives become consumed with the many things out of our control (children, work, interests to name a few.) Then as quickly as they float off shore, it does come back. My mother’s childhood friend would return to mother’s shore again towards the end of her life. What is remarkable about this floating in and out, is our ability to just cherish the good and bad memories, and just pick up where you left off. In the end, connecting again, like no time had passed, I believe gave her hope and peace.

Diane & Linda on Linda’s wedding day in 1969.

Friendships like the above are also, a friendship built on the idea, this person is now family. To round out the family connection listed above, it was later determined between my great-great grandmother and her new found friend, they were in-fact second or third cousins. But, some friendships take over or simply become a family connection. These friendships experience the same floating in and out of the shore. These friendships start at a young age and take on a role of family, because for some, family is just not an option anymore. These friendships also, begin in early adulthood. This fairly common occurrence in the LGBTQ+ community.

The new family members become a compass for many in their lifetimes. But these journeys are not for everyone. I think the majority of us have this level of “family” friendships, and we work hard at times to keep those connections alive. There are some out there, who struggle with these kinds of connections and honestly, aren’t receptive to keeping those connections alive. In my own experience, my sister and I like to say we actually grew up with two more siblings. These sibling were in fact neighbors, who were steeped in our families daily lives. This started from an early age and has carried on for decades. We have floated from shore from time to time, but the moments when we need each other, in death, in celebration, we do our best to be there.

Diane & Linda celebrating Linda’s 75th Birthday.

Friendships like those do take time and care, just like any friendship does. I will say this, keeping these friendships alive is a lot easier than it used to be. If you are 38 or older you can agree based on your own experience. With the dawn of the internet and cellular communications. Emails and Texting have replaced, the long phone calls, paper letters that you hunt for stamps, or simply getting off your ass to go knock on that persons door. I still keep personal letterhead because, I hope me taking my time to reach out to a friend, simply to say thank you, builds on that connection.

Before, you start to assess how you can be better at connecting with friends. Recognize the efforts you have made first. You might actually be doing more than you think. Friendships take two people, my best advice, never take it personal when a friendship floats away from your shore. Be patient! Reach out! They will return to shore one day. That said, sometime, there are friendship that are best kept out at sea. But I will keep that for my next post on this subject.