Outgrowing Friendships

There's a quote I like. It says, 'people come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime'. Sometimes you don't realize how true that is until you've found someone whose season has come and gone. It isn't that you don't love this person or value them. It is more that you've outgrown the friendship, moved in two totally different directions, and can't get back to the center. Usually there isn't one set thing that has happened to split the friendship up. Sometimes, there really isn't anything...it's just the way life is. And you know it has happened when you try to reconnect with this person but it doesn't go well...almost like you're magnets that repel each other instead of cling. It is very sad when you outgrow someone...sometimes it is downright depressing...because you considered this person one of your closest friends for a lifetime and now that isn't the case.

Sometimes the break can be amicable...you talk...you don't talk...you move on...wish them well. But sometimes the break is painful, because while one person may think the friendship is over, the other person doesn't. Maybe they're in denial...maybe they need you more than you need them. But when two people aren't on the same page, it doesn't bode well for either person.

I can honestly say that I thought I'd have some people as friends forever. I mean, you grow up together, you start families, you have lives, and yet you still can chat when you can, catch up, do things together. And then one day, you realize the effort you're making is one-sided and you decide that maybe you aren't as important to that other person as you once were. That hurts, but that's also a sign (to me) that the friendship has run it's course. And it hurts like hell to feel like that...but it is also life. And life sucks sometimes. But remember, just because one person walks out, doesn't mean everyone does/will. And for every friendship that you outgrow, there is that one that you'll never outgrow, because no matter what life throws your way, no matter that sometimes you are too different, you continue to grow with each other, complementing each other. Here's to those few who stick by us, no matter what.