Sunday, June 05, 2005

Friends

I was thinking just yesterday when I bumped into an old friend, what a curious thing friendship is. I mean, how is it we can be so close to certain people that we share secrets, ups as well as downs and then something happens to get in the way and we are no longer so friendly anymore. It's not that we have fallen out with certain people, it's just that for a time in our lives our paths crossed and now they no longer do so.

The friend I saw yesterday, I have known since school days, then we went nursing together. Sometimes we worked on the same wards, where she was frequently in trouble for turning up late, or her uniform was not regulation. She was the chief bridesmaid when I got married 21 years ago and now although, we live in the same town we have drifted apart.

Even when the children were young and I lived in another town, we still kept in touch for the odd night out or childrens' party.

So what makes friends drift apart, I wonder?

I think my hubby hit the nail on the head when we were talking about school reunions that seem so popular these days: "You can't go back," he said. "What it amounts to it that you had something in COMMON with these people at one time and now you no longer do."

He's quite right of course. But I have proved one exception to the rule. I have a friend, Zoe, who I was in school with and later we used to socialise with one another. Then we lost touch, she had a controlling boyfriend, who wouldn't even allow her to attend my wedding. Years later, when she had finally dumped the man who abused her physically, emotionally and verbally, we made contact again. Quite by accident. I had moved back to my home town and worked in a local shoe shop. Her mother came in and told me that Zoe was back living in Merthyr too and now she was living with someone and had two lovely children.

I made contact and it was like we had never been apart from one another.

Nowadays, she has moved away but comes back home from time to time and we have the odd night out together or go for a meal at lunch time. It's nice.

Why our friendship has endured whilst others have fallen by the wayside I have no idea. The only thing that I can think of is that we both seem to be the same sorts of characters we were when we were seventeen. There's no pretence or trying to out do one another. We're comfortable with one another and share the same sort of sense of humour.

I think the Beatles put it well in one of their songs:


In My Life

There are places I remember
All my life, though some have changed,
Some forever, not for better,
Some have gone and some remain.
All these places had their moments,
With lovers and friends I still can recall,
Some are dead and some are living,
In my life I’ve loved them all.
But of all these friends and lovers,
There is no one compared with you,
And these mem’ries lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new.
Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before,
I know I’ll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more.
Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before,
I know I’ll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more.
In my life I love you more.

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