Old Reflections on Friendships Ending

I wrote this post back in mid-November, 2014.

I guess I forgot to finish it. I guess I never really knew how to finish it.

My reason for posting this now is simple - its important for me to have this to look back on in order to remember how far I've come and where I was back then. Even with that being said, I can't help cringing as I read over this post.

Let it be known that a small portion of the emotions and feelings in this post are still valid, but a lot has changed since I wrote this as well...

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Thirteen - the number of days I have left of my second year of University. This city is a ghost town right now as the majority of students are finishing up their exams and slowly making their way home. As luck would have it, my exam timetable has me here until the very end. Over the next few days I will be saying goodbye to each one of my friends as they all leave before me and in just under two weeks I would have written my final paper, load up my car, hand in my key and make the journey home.

It has been a long year and despite everything that life has thrown at me, I have to say that this really has been a goodie. In all honesty, I'm surprised that I am able to look back on this year with such joy, gratitude and contentment. If you'd shown me back in January what my life looked like today I'd be completely shocked for a number of reasons. One of these reasons being the change in my friendships. I've wanted to write about this for so long, but I just haven't known how to. I know friends come and go. I know that people change. I know that sometimes you need to let go of certain things so that others are able to fall into place. What I didn't know was how to accept all of this.

My best friend of fourteen years; Dillyn and I are now strangers. Dill has been mentioned a number of times on this blog. We met on the first day of Grade 1 and were inseperable ever since. We ended up going to different High Schools and have continued to take different paths in life - I chose to study after school and he chose to head home and work in his father's business. Our farms are right next to one another, our parents are really good friends and him and I, well were were family. For Dillyn and I, January looked a little like this...

Spending the long, hot Summer days on the dam with a handful of friends and a little boat.

Going camping over New Year's with his car serving as our tent, 24 hot dogs and one tooth brush between us. The trip to the dam/camp site should have taken us twenty minutes. It took us four hours due to my crappy direction skills and his refusal to ask for help. We somehow managed to make the trip on an empty tank of petrol. That was one of my favourite days.

Sitting at the bottom of my empty pool at 12am with a bottle of terrible champange, listening to songs that we connected with more deeply than either of us cared to admit.

And wasting the nights away over games of pool, braais with friends and countless laughs.

Come November, it's a completely different story. I'm not sure why it happened. Well, I am. I guess I'm still just confused as to how it got to where we are now so quickly. Things changed in an instant. And they needed to. He was my best friend, but he had demons that he was struggling with and they were pulling me down. I could not save him, and I think he was expecting me to. I still love him and he still loves me and that's never going to change. When it's 3am and I need to have a good old sob, he's still the person I call. That boy will forever be one of my favourite people in the world, but I feel as though we're both exactly where we need to be right now.

Do I miss him and those times we spent together? Oh absolutely. It's the weirdest thing being home during the holidays and only seeing him in the local grocery store or at the petrol station. We're still friendly towards one another and a large portion of it all still feels like home. But things are definitely not the same and I doubt they ever will be. Nowadays he asks me how I'm doing and I reply with "I'm fine". Before, he never used to ask simply because he would know how I was feeling even before I did. For this entire year I've struggled with the same thing: when to walk away and say enough is enough and when to stay and fight for that person. I think I found my answer in the realization that I was always the only one fighting.

It's been a big change and I would have thought it would have affected me in a much larger way that it has. But I'm so at peace with it all. I've formed some of the most amazing friendships this year and I couldn't be happier or more grateful with where God's got me in life right now.