For as carefree and go with the flow as I am, I am also an incredibly caring and purposeful person. This nature I have about me is something I’d never change, but it’s something I’ve found myself in kind of a pickle with recently when it comes to navigating friendships in my life.
It’s been hard for me to further connect with people I still care about that aren’t taking the time to further connect with me, and yet I still feel a sense of looming guilt for not being the one to “schedule” the further connection.
Part of me doesn’t care, and knows I should let it be—but the other part of me is like damn, and wonders what could be.
I feel like I’m too young to fully accept the idea that certain people are truly only meant to be in my life for certain reasons at certain times. My lack of acceptance revolves around friendships in particular that are there, but not there anymore. I’ve accepted this idea for a plethora of other friendships in my life that still felt solid when fading. There was a sense of closure to them that didn’t need closure, it just was what it was and that's all it had to be. This lack of acceptance comes from the fact that it’s hard for me to look at a book on my desk with a folded piece of wrapping paper as a bookmark sticking out of it that at one time, was gifted by a dear friend of mine.
With these types of semi-connections, there is still mutual care for each other from afar, but neither party puts in the time to stay connected in a way that’s more than, for example, one video call a year. Which yes, sometimes one video call a year is enough, sometimes that’s more than enough—but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to place more value on my friendships that have always flowed with ease even when we didn’t talk every few weeks. Scheduling is inevitable in the adult world when it comes to various types of friendships, but I’m talking about the friendships where there doesn’t always have to be scheduled calls or planned texts—there’s a mutual inconsistent yet consistent rhythm that flows outside of that.
After the pandemic did its thing, I was in the midst of coming to terms with the acceleration of meaningful “lost connections” that started to loom in my life. Some of those lost connections I thought were lost, ended up reconnecting because hey, a global pandemic can be pretty draining (single tear emoji) and we all fell off the grid for a while—but the ones that didn’t come back to some sort of resolution point are the ones that don’t sit right with me. I don’t think they sit right because part of me wonders what would’ve been if the pandemic hadn’t happened during my last year of college; an already pivotal/overwhelming time in one’s life when moving on to the next.
The idea of only communicating with someone you care about once or twice a year seems bizarre to me nowadays. It’s one thing to only physically see someone once or twice a year, but to only communicate with them once or twice a year (that’s more than a few kind words/memes on social media)… I dunno. I get friendships come and go and the strength of those friendships ebb and flow, but it doesn’t make it any easier to accept that even though you’re okay with the exiting of someone in your life, you’re not fully accepting of the fact that even though you still care and want to know how they’re doing, the energy that was once there to do it—to make it a reality and connect—is no longer there.
There can be mutual care without consistent connection; there can be and I have several examples of that, and this consistency is different for everyone. Though, what’s been eating at me the most is the fact that even though I care about said individuals with all of my heart for what our friendship once was, I just don’t have it in me to try and carry it on—to pick up where it left off, to build the bridge that calls for two to connect.
Maybe it’s because I’ve got my own shit going on I’d rather put my time and energy towards, or maybe it’s because I know deep down, that this is a part of life that was bound to happen… even for friendships that were once more meaningful amongst others.
If you care for someone, let them know—but also know that it’s okay to let what was once something meaningful go in order to make room for others to show.