I've known my best friend for almost 22 years. She's the closest thing I'll ever have to a sister. When there's big tragedy or big happiness in my life, she's one of the first people I call to tell the news. When I got engaged, I text messaged her before we called anyone else other than my mother. And she replied by saying "I'm standing here so excited I'm crying!"
But she won't be at my 30th birthday party, and she won't have much to do with my wedding planning despite the fact that she is one of two people that Kevin and I are bothering to make a place in the ceremony for. And after our conversation this morning on IM, I'm a little...befuddled. Not hurt, but it's taken me a few weeks to realize that this is one of "those times".
It's one of those times when her life and my life don't converge very much, and not just because we live in different cities. It's because we have different interests and different schedules and different priorities and we don't have the time or impetus to make us force our lives to converge.
It's one of those times when the focus of my life (the wedding, the job, the JournalCon, the recommitment to WW) and the focus of her life (the teaching, the partying, the traveling) are so different that we barely have anything to talk about.
It's one of those times when we barely talk, when we don't always return phone calls, when we have abrupt IM conversations, when we almost but not quite have a snarky little argument because our lives are so different.
You don't have a 22 year friendship without going through phases like this. We've been through them before, and we'll go through them again as we hit these different life changes. I just have to remember that and not let myself get hurt or upset when she doesn't call me back right away or she walks away from IM conversations suddenly. She's as busy as I am, and her life is going different places than mine is but it doesn't mean that she doesn't love me or that she's not still the closest thing I'll have to a sister.
It just means we'll have lots to catch up on when this wave of "those times" goes by.
But she won't be at my 30th birthday party, and she won't have much to do with my wedding planning despite the fact that she is one of two people that Kevin and I are bothering to make a place in the ceremony for. And after our conversation this morning on IM, I'm a little...befuddled. Not hurt, but it's taken me a few weeks to realize that this is one of "those times".
It's one of those times when her life and my life don't converge very much, and not just because we live in different cities. It's because we have different interests and different schedules and different priorities and we don't have the time or impetus to make us force our lives to converge.
It's one of those times when the focus of my life (the wedding, the job, the JournalCon, the recommitment to WW) and the focus of her life (the teaching, the partying, the traveling) are so different that we barely have anything to talk about.
It's one of those times when we barely talk, when we don't always return phone calls, when we have abrupt IM conversations, when we almost but not quite have a snarky little argument because our lives are so different.
You don't have a 22 year friendship without going through phases like this. We've been through them before, and we'll go through them again as we hit these different life changes. I just have to remember that and not let myself get hurt or upset when she doesn't call me back right away or she walks away from IM conversations suddenly. She's as busy as I am, and her life is going different places than mine is but it doesn't mean that she doesn't love me or that she's not still the closest thing I'll have to a sister.
It just means we'll have lots to catch up on when this wave of "those times" goes by.
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