Mourning the Lost

Do you have any of those friendships where you look back and try to pinpoint the exact moment when it started fading away? You wonder "what happened?" I have a few like that. I am also becoming more aware of the fact that as I get older it will not stop or even slow down.

That awareness has made me sad yet somewhat grateful simultaneously.

Sad because friendships are such an integral part of our lives; they shape who we are and who we are yet to become. To lose one of those relationships tears into our souls and urges us to re-examine what we want out of our lives.

Grateful because that re-examination process produces a wiser, more intuitive version of myself. I become keenly aware of what I am looking for in a friendship and what I am willing to offer. I am also grateful because I got to spend however many allotted moments with that person and in some small or big way those moments changed my life. I prefer to think that the changes are good.

I look forward to the coming and going of these life-altering relationships. I will forever mourn the loss of certain friendships over the years but I will not let it interfere with the creation of new ones. I will allow them to influence the new.

For what have I learned from the former if it does not affect the latter?