It’s OK to not stay close friends with someone

I’m pretty sure if you weigh how many friends you’ve made in your first year of college and how many friends you started the school year with—the difference would be negative. Not only has your college circle shrunk, but you’ve probably drifted away from a lot of people you thought you’d never live without.

Of course I still follow all of these said friends on various social media platforms—but it’s the not the same. The only thing you really have in common now is your shared past—you remember each other as you were in that brief moment of growing up. You remember each other as you were in your friendship. Whenever you’re interacting with those friends you subconsciously try to make yourself as you were—to be the person you were when you clicked—and it’s taxing.

When you’re growing up who you are meant to be is asleep. As you grow and begin to chase and discover where your individual light is and how you’re going to reach that light—not a single person is following the same light and not a single person is going to take the same path or time to reach that light—as you chase this light, you begin to shake the dust off of who you are.

It’s kind of like losing weight or growing older. Day by day you don’t see any changes, then one day you’re looking in the mirror and you go, “Hey, I think I’m different…I think I changed.” When you finally look closely at who you have become and say… “I don’t see much of who I used to be…” look around. Chances are, the people you consider to be closest to you look nothing like the people you thought you were still close to.

Here are a few signs you might be walking towards the mirror, looking in the mirror, or smiling at your new newly discovered self.

You find yourself talking about the same things with your old friends

When you make the effort to reach out and catch up, what you’re talking about is what you always talk about.  You’re not entirely comfortable sharing the intimate details of your life with them nor do you really want to. The conversations are best kept at a level where both parties won’t be uncomfortable.

The majority of your focus is on yourself and your future

You no longer care about maintaining said friendships if they cause you to expend more energy than you care to.  Whoever is continuing on with you in your journey is coming and who ever isn’t wasn’t meant to. You don’t have time for headaches.

You go weeks maybe even months without thinking about said friend

Maybe it’s a millennial thing but really I think it’s more of a focus thing. When life gets complicated, when it gets busy and it gets hard and you’re so busy trying to micromanage every part of your life and still relax, you don’t feel the urge to update a set number of your day to day activities, obligations, and stresses. You’re more focused on just doing them. You’re focused on putting in the work daily to create the life in which you want to star.

You’re quickly discovering that you and your friends’ priorities used to be similar…now? Not even close

You used to prioritize similar things and now you don’t. You find yourself continually frustrated with who your friend is and how they deal with situations because they’re still operating in the same mind set you both used to be in. You’ve grown and you know that that mind set is really not the best one to be in. It is okay to evolve…it is necessary actually. Smile when it happens, just remember that no one grows at the same rate so don’t condemn anyone for the rate at which they’re evolving. If the way they handle relations and responsibilities doesn’t jive with you—keep it moving. No hard feelings.

You find yourself a bit sad sometimes—maybe even nostalgic of how certain friendships used to be

We’ve all had that moment when we’re speaking with old friends or hanging out with old friends and you hit that stride in conversation or energy flow and everything feels just like old times. You try to savor it because it’s the feeling you felt months or years ago—the feeling of being exactly where you’re meant to be with who you’re meant to be with. It feels good and you’re taken back to the pure joy of that time. That is until something quickly, and it always does, disrupts it. It happens all the time.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a mistake to forget the people in your life who played an integral part in helping you become who you are. It’s a mistake to think that certain friendships were useless and a waste of time and it’s a mistake to completely cut them out of your life (unless they’re toxic of course). The real tact and art in maintaining relationships as your life changes at an unprecedented rate is to know that those friendships will always have their place in your life. How accessible that place is and how often you want to journey to that place is what will inevitably change.