A few years ago I received an email with the message "people always come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime." I've always felt this is true, and I remember who I associated that statement with at the time (and I'm still trying to figure out that reason). Lately I've been thinking how do we know who is supposed to be in our lives and who isn't? It's no longer a simple thing of them moving away, or losing touch. Our society is now set up so we can know what our friends are doing 24/7. So who's really our friend? Is it the person who comments on our myspace/facebook page once or twice a month (or every three months)? Is it the one who sends us the weekly update via email but yet we have no emotional connection?
Recent events have but this on my mind. Are we keeping people in our lives who don't really belong there, because of technology? Does the Internet create a false sense of intimacy with people?
I'm not talking about people we meet over the net; some of the people who know my most personal thoughts are people I met over the net. Some of them know me better than people who I was friends with and saw on a daily basis.
I suppose that's the other thing, there are people we can see practically everyday of our lives, who are our "friends" and yet they don't really know who we are. Is it because we hide our true selves or aspects of ourselves from them? If so, why? Are we afraid that they won't understand that part of us and in turn may reject us? Or is it really none of their business? Are they friends on a need to know basis, and if so are those people really our friends?
The last couple of months I've run into people who consider me to be a friend, but really I'm not. I'm a friend to them when it's convenient for them to have me in their lives, which is fine if we can both be up front about. If we know that neither of us is really gonna make the effort to keep in contact, except when we have time then we know we can't be upset when certain events don't make it into that monthly update.
The friend of convenience is different from those who are able to come in and out of your lives. There's no "you're my friend now because____" undertone. Over winter break I met with one of my friends Ms. G and we talked about how you can be close with someone and then down the line you don't know how to operate around them. You can no longer be open about what you think, who you are, and how you feel about them. That's a sad situation, but it happens, and so do we let them go?
On the other hand some people can come in and out of your life and it's like they were never gone. We (Ms. G and I) are those people to each other. I went three years unable to get a hold of her (and vice versa), and then one day things fell into place and we met up. Ever since then we've known we can come and go physically from each others world, but if one of us needs the other one, we'll be there in a heartbeat (whether or not it's convenient). She is definitely a keeper.
So what kind of people do we want for friends? How can we root out the acquaintances who feel they "know" us because they once did, however many years ago?
I think it comes down to who encourages us to be a better person and who wants to actively participate in our life and watch us grow. The lifetime friends will let their presence be known. But the others, the reason, and the season, maybe we should let them go once their time is done...just maybe.
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