Ever miss how your friends USED TO be?

In life, you can mourn the loss of a friend in two ways:

1. He or she passes away
2. He or she becomes a completely different person over time, diluting and possibly ending your once-fantastic friendship. (The friendship may also end as a result of simmering conflict or following a big argument between you two.)

For this post, I'll focus only on #2.

As I have noted in prior posts, with people, the only constant in life is change. Changing circumstances -- a new career, marriage, children, relocation -- redirect our energies and either leave us with limited time for friendships or prompt us to forge new ones.

People like me, despite whatever life throws at us, make the effort to keep in touch with close friends. I'd like to think that I haven't changed much since high school, except for the obvious (married, full time job, mortgage, etc.).

Unfortunately, some people are better than others at balancing the demands of work, family, and a social life. Several people I know abandoned their friends as soon as they got into relationships or tied the knot. Others let success or other circumstances change them, giving them little incentive to maintain the relationships they had in their "old life."

So, what's my point? You are going to find that some friends will value the history you have together enough to keep putting effort into the friendship -- whether they're married, childfree, rich or broke. They won't let shifting circumstances change who they are, nor the kind of friendship you both have always had.

Others, alas, are happy to flip to the next page of their lives and leave everything -- including old friendships -- behind. It is my hope that all of us can be fortunate enough to have at least one friend who won't let the passage of time -- nor the many changes in his or her life -- detrimentally impact the bond we have with them.

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