friends

friends are an interesting thing. there will always be new friends, old friends, friends that you havent seen in a while, life long friends, friends for a season. i have recently just moved to a new place so i am adjusting to new people, hanging out in new homes and different restaurants. this weekend i am taking off for a wedding and will be able to catch up and/or see friends from college. so with all this going on i have started to think about friends of past, present and future. the different levels of friendships and how they have affected me thus far. in elementary you would play games, do the birthday party thing, have sleepovers. everything revolved around fun in high school you might start to have different groups of friends. church friends, sports friends, school friends. this would revolve sometimes to what season of the year it was. it would involve fun, discipline, commitment, studying and for the most part surface level friendships. it might be that you had a lot of friends therefore you didnt go deep with most. in college though things change, you are in the same community everyday therefore being with some of the same people a lot. so you really get to know more than just what they like but who they really are as a person. you do everything together and get to a level of friendship where there is not just a bond of friendship but also a bond that involves emotion where you feel comfortable to tell them anything and everything. this is a place of accountability, authenticity and community that you never thought were possible in high school. and then even though you move away from college you keep these friends. you keep in touch with them by email, verizon (the in network) and by scheduling vacation to see them. (unlike the high school friends where you would talk by email sporadically until it happened less and less, you would see them during college breaks and then maybe have less and less contact with until you eventually cut ties with. not purposely but you have less in common and you are headed in different directions.)

after college you have a sense that real friends are who you share life with. you have become so close to what will be friends for ever and then you are thrown into a world where there is less community then what you knew for the last 4 years at college. instead of being with someone everyday you now see them once or twice a week. they can still be good friends but what took the first semester (4 months)or less during your freshman year now takes about a year to achieve. not that this is a bad thing it is just... different, something that one will take a while to get used to. but in a way you are still longing for the community that you had in college. it will take a while to connect with someone on that deep level maybe ever.

all this to say that community is important. community changes over time where once in elementary we were okay with games, it just doesnt cut it anymore. we have been changed where the importance is the emotional tie of living life together, helping people get through the tough times, challenging them, encouraging them and pouring a friendship into a life dedicated to each other.