When I was out of town a few months ago, I looked forward to having dinner with an old friend from high school. It had been way too long since we’d seen each other, and I wasn’t particularly interested in spending another night at home.

Ever since this friend was maid of honor at my wedding, life had pulled me into a tumultuous whirlwind of events. I got a job and lost it a year later. My husband and I bought a house. And I got pregnant.

As we mused over life in general in the front yard to her parents’ house and later at an Italian restaurant of her choosing, our chatter started out as it normally did when I lived at home. She rambled on about her parents and her cousins and gave me the buzz on my old friends from high school.

The Evolution of Friendship

As the conversation wore on, though, I realized that we were in two completely different places, and we couldn’t really relate anymore. The only thing we share at this point is the memory of how our lives used to be, not how they are now. After asking her all kinds of questions about her life, I thought she would have had some questions about what was going on with me.

She didn’t. Suspecting that I was pregnant at the time and thus coursing with hormones, I found myself getting upset and eventually crying over my father’s death, which took place more than two years ago. Normally, I would have no trouble holding myself together. Still, I couldn’t help but think: am I really that uninteresting? She could have asked about my life!

Life in Retrospect

When I looked back on the meal a few short hours later, a horrible truth occurred to me: I really wasn’t interesting–at least, not to her, anymore. Perhaps in my own mind, I was living the most fabulous life possible, but I was no longer a big part of my friend’s world. She had moved on, and I had, too. We used to see each other at the occasional social gathering, but she had her own life with her family up north, and I had my own with my husband down south.

Contrary to what we’d like to believe, friendship really is changeable. They don’t always end because of a fight or difference of opinion–they change because we change.

But change is a good thing. Without change, we couldn’t grow. Growth means finding out who we are.

And isn’t that what truly matters, after all?

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