Grieving Friendship Loss/Change

Sometimes grief takes me by surprise. It blindsides me in the middle of an ordinary day as sudden tears roll down my cheeks, seemingly out of nowhere. Obviously, that's not the case. They always stem from something quite specific, something I've pushed very deep inside, trying to prevent it from ever coming up to the surface. Sometimes the pressure it too much, though.

This weekend we spent some time with a group of true kindred spirit friends that we found two years ago (the "house church" crowd, I want to write more about them later). S, the friend I sometimes car-pool with (this semester our schedules are 100% off, though! :-( How upsetting!) asked me how the holidays went, since we hadn't talked since December, and I explained the basics, a summarized version of our sad, expensive short trip to Florida.

That relatively brief conversation with S and the fact that I spent many hours last night looking at photos of the idyllic holidays of 2013-214 (in Brazil with our whole families, 10 days in an incredible beach) probably messed with me.

The tears came as I thought about the depressing second day of that Florida trip. Driving three hours South on the rain to meet friends at this science museum we didn't want to go to. Friends we hadn't seen in nearly a year. And when I rushed to write this post, the tears were gone and dried soon after I'd written half of these lines.

The tears have dried, but now I've been made keenly aware of the grief. It's there and I need to acknowledge it. I need to accept the fact that those friendships are changed forever and that there's not much that I can do to mend or change it. I wish there was, but life is too complicated.

At four years old my son wanted to marry their daughter. The girl that now, given our common interest in books (and maybe in my son, even), feels like she's my friend (and I feel the same way). But I'm sorry to say that as much as I'd love for our kids to actually have a relationship someday, deep down I think it would be too complicated. Thankfully, it probably won't happen. And if by any chance it does (how cool would it be for kids whose grandfathers were friends & roommates and whose uncle & aunt got married, to be together?) ;-) we'll have to work out in mending those relationships.

We'll see what life will bring us. In the meantime, the tears have brought me more awareness and, paradoxically, more peace too. Thanks to writing (and blogging as cheap free therapy!). :-)