As Big Ben tolls, heralding the start of another New Year, I think we often reflect upon the past, the present and the future.
We think about the people currently present in our lives; family, friends and maybe even work colleagues. It’s that time of year when we seek fresh beginnings and ponder whether this is the year that we need to make changes even within our close circle.
I am fortunate to have a group of good friends that I have made at various stages of my life from primary school up to my days as a funeral celebrant.
As someone who is currently at the midlife stage I have learnt across the years, though, that friendship is not always forever. The most common reason for a friendship ending isn’t tension; it’s just that friendships fizzle out. You basically outgrow each other. A friend may move, get a new job, start a family or move onto a new stage of their life which is no longer compatible with your own. One study found we lose about half our friends every seven years.
That quantity of loss is not true for me but, at this stage of my life, I’m not afraid to lose a friendship.
I’ve learnt from experience that the decision to move on from this type of relationship is often mutual but neither of you wants to take that first step. In reality as you cool the connection you will nearly always find that the other person doesn’t pursue it either, so actually you were both feeling the same way. I can think of three friendships, in particular, where this was the case.
The first was a friendship of about 16 years. Dawn and I had met through work, this then developed into a social friendship but as the years rolled by we were both moving into different phases of our life. I had become a single parent whilst she was a mature student pursuing a university degree which, not surprisingly, took up a lot of her time.
Throughout our friendship there had also always been the presence of another third party -Nicola. Nicola was one of those possessive friends, the type who has to be the BFF, who makes it clear that you are treading on her toes and regularly posts pictures of the two of them laughing and joking. One of those people who laud it over you with phrases like “Dawn and I had a fab night out, just the two of us” or “oh didn’t Dawn tell you we are going to see that new film that’s just come out” .
Personally with two children to bring up single handed and a career taking all the rest of my energy, I found my social time becoming more and more precious and I seriously didn’t have the energy to get into a competition with Nicola. I just got to the stage where I found it easier to step away. Three years later we moved from Essex to Gloucestershire which probably should have cemented the end of our friendship.
Weirdly though Dawn tracked me down 14 years later on Facebook and we reconnected. It’s a hard friendship to maintain as she has since moved as well and we now live many miles apart but we both try to catch up regularly across the phone or FaceTime.
The second friendship was only about four years in length and ended soon after I moved to Gloucestershire. Again our lives took different turns -having recovered from a serious illness, through which I was present as much as possible, and given birth to her first son, she also went on to study for a degree and we drifted apart.
The third friendship had also begun at work. Hannah and I both worked for the same company and about a year after I had moved West we began to meet socially.
As female Managers, at the time, and both with fairly young families, we had a lot in common. I guess it was about eight years later after she had left the company and taken a new role that our friendship began to fade. She met a new circle of people, worked “normal” hours and our lives moved on separately. I sometimes look her up on Facebook and wonder if its worth trying to rekindle our lost friendship but I tend to feel fate has its own way of filling your life with new hobbies, interests and friends and so tend to carry on.
Moving back to Gloucestershire brought the possibility to reconnect with old school friends. My senior school life wasn’t that great (see previous post “Life Experience vs The Tabloids”) plus when I moved here in 2005 I was still busy working whilst being a single parent so time to socialise wasn’t a priority. I did often wonder sometimes when I wandered through the local town and villages why I never seemed to bump into anyone I knew.
However back in 2020 when Covid hit and time suddenly stood still, I made a point of trying to locate an old friend – Diane who I hadn’t seen since I was probably about 21 years old. We’d managed to stay in touch for the first three years after leaving school but then life took over and we lost touch. It was actually her sister, who was on Facebook, who pointed me in the right direction for which I am forever thankful. Once life restarted outside of the Covid bubble we reconnected in person and have become friends with her and her husband seeing each other as frequently as life permits.
Through Diane I also was introduced to another group of girls who used to attend my senior school. This group meets up for a meal about once every three months. It was quite nerve wracking the first time I attended but as time has gone on I’ve found it easier. Unlike Diane, who lived abroad for a period of time, this group of up to eight individuals have mainly stayed in the “Stroud bubble” as I call it. People in this area are predominantly white, conservative by nature and don’t tend to explore the world. I find it hard to relate to their lives and no doubt they feel the same about mine.
I’ve mixed with all levels of society, various backgrounds and endless amounts of different ethnic groups, as explained in several of my previous “Opinion” pieces, which I’d like to think have given me an all round perspective on life as a whole.
I sat and listened to this group of girls on our last night out, pre Christmas, and realised how far apart we really are. Having never experienced the cross sections of life that I have they give opinions about topics purely based upon what they have heard or read and not on what they have actually experienced. I am beginning to see how this is going to play out and doubt I will stay in touch with them in 2024.
I also made contact with another old school friend Hilary back in December 2020, again through Facebook. We commented on each others’ posts but didn’t actually arrange to meet up until September 2023 after I had returned from six months travelling.
It’s early stages but Hilary has as much life experience as me, if not more, having climbed both the corporate ladder and the ranks within the armed forces. She has also, by choice, explored the world, often on her own which is amazing to hear about. I’m looking forward to seeing how this will develop over time.
Before I complete this post on “Friendships” I feel I have to mention one very sad fact about trying to rekindle friendships in later life. Don’t leave it too late.
When I left Essex back in 2005 I left behind one of my closest friends -Adam. We had worked together for about five years and had supported each other through thick and thin. We tried to stay in touch once I moved West but life took over and he eventually moved back to East Yorkshire from whence he had been brought up.
Bizarrely when I was in Barbados in 2006 we had contacted each other out of the blue and he was flying out there on holiday literally the day before I was due to fly home. We tried to meet up that night but it didn’t come to fruition and then life went on.
My thoughts turned to Adam again back in February 2015 and I started to look for him on Facebook. Sadly I discovered that he had passed away in December 2012 and it was too late. I was absolutely gutted.
I’ve recently finished reading a Christmas book entitled “Meet Me Under The Mistletoe” by Jenny Bayliss where the author describes a similar situation “The worst part of all -the part Elinor couldn’t get her head around – was that Tristan wasn’t in the world any more. it hadn’t mattered that they hadn’t seen each other from one year to the next, because she’d known he was in the world somewhere. And suddenly he wasn’t. She would never see him again; that option had been removed from the universe. “
If there is someone out there who you keep thinking about getting back in touch with, stop thinking about it and just do it. You have nothing to lose………………..
Please note -I have changed the names of my friends in this post as I feel using their real names is an invasion of their privacy.
A Midlife Adventure 