The parabola of friendship
Making friends is a funny phenomenon. I never gave it any thought in my youth, but when I went to college, I was worried. There is something unique about childhood friends. People who have been in our lives since before we even understood what friendship was, who’ve known us in different phases, who understand where the unique and beautiful (or sometimes hard) parts of us come from.
So even as I worked to make friends and meet new people at college, I clung to my friends from elementary and high school. I emailed them often, chatted with them on AIM (IYKYK), and eagerly awaited seeing them at breaks to catch up. I felt like I would never again meet people who would know me the same way as the friends who knew me as a child did. It was a daunting belief.
College was, of course, a transformative experience for many reasons. And once I started working and meeting new people at the office, I thought – none of these people will ever know me and understand me the way my childhood and college friends do. How could they possibly?
And yet I was proven wrong once again. I met friends in my early career who knew the youthful, ambitious, sometimes rough-around-the-edges version, ones who met me in my social heyday, and more still in the years after I started my own business, who learned me in an entirely new era. Post-covid, I’ve met new people who are now amongst my closest circle of friends.
Life is strange that way.
Just when we think something in our life couldn’t possibly change, the universe reminds us that there are surprises around every corner. I am so thankful for the waves of friends I’ve met over my life, for the unique moments they’ve come into (and occasionally out of, because that happens too) my life. And I leave the door of wonder cracked for whoever might stop by next…
AI’s avatar version of me with one of my oldest and dearest friends…