Old Friends Never Die
There was a recent study that suggested we, as a society, don't make as many friends, or aren't as close to people as we were in decades past.
I have to wonder if that has to do with our aging population. As I get older, I've noticed that I don't have as many close friends, or even what I would even consider casual friends, but more mere acquaintences.
Since I was a mid-life child for my parents, I've known my mother all of my life from her 40's on and in that time, I realize I've observed the same thing with her. At first, I thought this was a by-product of her being anti-social or a bit shy around others, but now I think paring your "real friends" from "casual friends" or acquaintenances comes naturally as we age. In our teens and maybe even through our 30's, we might have dozens of people we talk on the phone with (and email now) about school, work or family. But as we grow older and our responsibilities, and life's losses grow deeper, people seem to drop away. Some of them by their choice (or ours), others may not drop completely but fade into the background.
It was perhaps this I was witnessing in my mother as I grew up. She had very few friends I would consider close and as I accumulated dozens through my childhood and early adulthood, I couldn't understand it.
I think this might come from our sharpening senses of people; who we can count on and who we can't. The True Blue.
My mother and Godmother, who had their share of 'issues' through the years (as people who care for one another do), were still close when she passed over 1 year ago. As both of them encountered more medical problems with their age, they called each other even more frequently and my Godmother even checked in on my mother when I was out of town. Perhaps it was that natuaral sense of who was True Blue that got them through the earlier rough times of their friendship.
After the last of the "old gang," as my mother calls them, passed this fall, my mother told me that for her, the worst part of getting old is not the medical problems, nor the loss of her energy or mobility, but it is being the last one alive. She couldn't even bear to attend the funeral.
When Mom moved to the senior living apartment, I first envisioned her making all sorts of new friends, maybe helping to replace the holes left by the losses that have come at a pretty steady rate for the past two decades.
What I see is her making a lot of casual friends, people who might drop a piece of cake off at her apartment or bring her the mail when she doesn't feel like walking to the lobby, but not what I would consider really close friends. No one who comes over for a full morning coffee clatch as I remember she did with the women of the old gang.
And as I speed toward my mid-40's, I understand that relunctance to trust your inner-most secrets to just anyone if they haven't made it into the old gang.
I have to wonder if that has to do with our aging population. As I get older, I've noticed that I don't have as many close friends, or even what I would even consider casual friends, but more mere acquaintences.
Since I was a mid-life child for my parents, I've known my mother all of my life from her 40's on and in that time, I realize I've observed the same thing with her. At first, I thought this was a by-product of her being anti-social or a bit shy around others, but now I think paring your "real friends" from "casual friends" or acquaintenances comes naturally as we age. In our teens and maybe even through our 30's, we might have dozens of people we talk on the phone with (and email now) about school, work or family. But as we grow older and our responsibilities, and life's losses grow deeper, people seem to drop away. Some of them by their choice (or ours), others may not drop completely but fade into the background.
It was perhaps this I was witnessing in my mother as I grew up. She had very few friends I would consider close and as I accumulated dozens through my childhood and early adulthood, I couldn't understand it.
I think this might come from our sharpening senses of people; who we can count on and who we can't. The True Blue.
My mother and Godmother, who had their share of 'issues' through the years (as people who care for one another do), were still close when she passed over 1 year ago. As both of them encountered more medical problems with their age, they called each other even more frequently and my Godmother even checked in on my mother when I was out of town. Perhaps it was that natuaral sense of who was True Blue that got them through the earlier rough times of their friendship.
After the last of the "old gang," as my mother calls them, passed this fall, my mother told me that for her, the worst part of getting old is not the medical problems, nor the loss of her energy or mobility, but it is being the last one alive. She couldn't even bear to attend the funeral.
When Mom moved to the senior living apartment, I first envisioned her making all sorts of new friends, maybe helping to replace the holes left by the losses that have come at a pretty steady rate for the past two decades.
What I see is her making a lot of casual friends, people who might drop a piece of cake off at her apartment or bring her the mail when she doesn't feel like walking to the lobby, but not what I would consider really close friends. No one who comes over for a full morning coffee clatch as I remember she did with the women of the old gang.
And as I speed toward my mid-40's, I understand that relunctance to trust your inner-most secrets to just anyone if they haven't made it into the old gang.
posted by Kerri Fivecoat-Campbell at 4:32 AM
1 Comments:
yes i too agree that old friends are like pure gold in everyone's life for sure... true friends always stand by your side, however, whatever and whenever... i liked the way you have shared your views here... do drop by My Friendship Blog sometimes and let me know if you like it...!!!
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