One is Silver

Make new friends but keep the old . . . One is silver and the other gold. Did anyone else learn this song in Girl Scouts? I got to thinking over the weekend about how unrealistic this song really is. Sure, in an ideal world, we would love to keep all of our friends as friends. But people change and grow. Sometimes we outgrow our friends.

I started thinking about this because I received a Christmas card on Friday in the mail. I could have told you it was going to be there before I even opened the mailbox. It was from a friend of mine who I knew in law school. I knew it would be there because she writes (handwrites) all of her Christmas cards over the Thanksgiving holiday and mails them the following week. I have known her for more than 10 years, and every year hers is the first card I get.


She and I were study partner friends rather than "share-all-your-deep-dark-secrets" friends, but we communicated often while in law school. However, since graduation, we really haven’t spent much time keeping up the friendship. In the end, we don’t have much in common and the trauma of law school cannot form the basis of a life-long friendship. She has also become much more right-wing religious since getting married about four years ago. Not that I mind religious people, but I do mind them when they do not have equal respect for my views.

I don’t always reciprocate with a Christmas card to her. I have a disdain for "newsy" this-is-what-we-did-all-year generic Christmas letters, so I prefer to handwrite a message in mine. Of course, this means that I tend to send out far fewer Christmas cards because I just don’t have the time to write to everyone.


So, I started wondering, "Why does she bother?" I haven’t seen her since her wedding four years ago. I’m not even sure she knows I have a child. We live four hours away from each other and didn’t have the strongest relationship even when we saw each other everyday. Am I being a real bitch for wondering why we should still be friends? Actually, I am not wondering that. I am wondering why she still considers me a friend, because I can’t say I consider her one.

That sounds harsh - it is not that I hate her, I mean, if she were lying on the street, I would stop to help her. But, I don’t really feel the friendship stuff for her.

I have several long-term friendships, relationships that have lasted throughout the years even though we no longer live in the same city or state. There is some unidentifiable string holding those friendships together year after year. These are different than "time and place" friends, people I was really close to during a certain period in my life but no longer have a relationship with today. These are important friends, too because they ground you in the place you currently are and become part of that fabric.

And then there are those friendships that end with a "fuck you." You know, some argument ends the friendship, usually because one of you learns something about the other one that you won’t stand for in a friendship. Thankfully, I haven’t had too many of those in my life because those are the worst to get over. Those endings leaving you feeling the most alone. Those are the friendships where, many years later, you wonder about the fate of the person. And perhaps you have a little sadness from the loss of the relationship. But mostly, you wonder if the person is still such a bitch.

And then you Google them and see they have a fabulous life, a great job, and own a huge house. And then you feel better because you know they are still assholes. And you wish just a little bit that Google had revealed they were in jail instead. Or bankrupt. Or fat.

Come on, people. That last part was a joke.

Sort of.