How friendships change as you get older.

Just a disclaimer, these are just thoughts of mine, and it’s not anything that I’m trying to vent about to a specific person or group. This isn’t the usual travel or home decor posts so read only if you want to hear my thoughts.

It’s no secret that I’m getting married this year. We got engaged back in September and after getting to just share it with close friends and family for the first couple of weeks we were ready to tell our wider group of friends. It hit me though that the large group of people that I had dreamed of telling about this exciting news wasn’t completely there anymore.

I want to start off with the fact that I have wonderful friends. I’ve cultivated some wonderful friendships over the past few years.

When I was getting fed all these posts on social media, I struggled with the fact that I didn’t seem to have that. I didn’t have the 15 friends that I’d been close with since highschool (I do still have a few people I stay close with from HS including my best friend and MOH). I used to have a girl gang that I had Galentine’s with, had Secret Santa’s at Christmas, went out for regular brunch dates to celebrate the big moments, but when I turned around I just didn’t have that same group anymore.

I started wondering what I had done wrong. I didn’t think there was a massive blow up, and there wasn’t one moment I could necessarily pinpoint something that had gone wrong or I had said something. I’ve grown up. It’s been years and a pandemic, and overall lots of things that had happened in between.

I had a conversation with one of my best friends (from my Laos Travel), and although I was grateful for the people I did have, social media and this implied requirement for having these massive groups of friends to celebrate with made me feel like I had failed. She said something to me that changed my perspective entirely.

“Thats what happens when you’re a citizen of the world. All of a sudden you have friends all across the world, close ones like us living on different continents, and when you go through these big moments like getting engaged, getting married, having babies, you can’t just head down the street and visit them. They are a call away, and a plane away, but it makes it harder to get that connection”

I had spent the last 10 years taking off for foreign lands, and long term trips and left my groups back in my hometown to continue on with their life.

I was no longer easy to get a hold of to hang out, I wasn’t always there for birthdays, I was gone and I had prioritized meeting new people, seeing new places and in essence, leaving them.

Don’t get me wrong, I think there is a lot there, Covid was also really hard on friendships, and a PTSD diagnosis in 2019 pre-pandemic didn’t help with my social anxiety and all of a sudden large groups, going out to the bar and being in unfamiliar social situations gave me a panic attack. I was used to inviting 10-20 people over every Friday to go out to our local watering hole or go out to the German bar down the street, and having 1-5 people sleep over after. All of a sudden with PTSD I didn’t know how to interact with my friends and certainly not in a social situation. Covid made things harder, but I still pushed through.

After the first two years, I went through a breakup that had a lot to do with it being the wrong relationship for the both of us, but also needing to deal with my PTSD on my own and not relying on a crutch. It made me both retreat into myself but also book as many trips as I possibly could. I was jetting off to Toronto every 6 months, went to Ottawa, booked a solo trip to Portugal, and altogether just chose to take the time to explore more and reconnect with my passion. And I met wonderful people along the way, and visited some of the ones I made on previous trips. But in doing so, I left the people once again in my hometown.

I consciously made the decision to seek adventure and connection elsewhere, and no doubt that was felt here. I didn’t realize until much later that it would affect those friendships, and what we once had as a shared bond, needed more upkeep.

I say all these things not because I’m hoping anything would change, and wouldn’t change all the experiences I’ve had and people I’ve met along the way. I’ve loved my life, even all the mistakes and tears and wrong turns I’ve seemingly made too. I went from having a massive group of people that I had around me to a smaller group, but thats okay. I’ve grown up. The people I do have around me understand that our friendship is still there when I get back after 6 months, they understand that I may not see them for awhile, but its still okay and we’re still okay.

This is growing up. This is choosing to spend energy where you get it back, it’s choosing to find things in common other than bars and going out. I still have small celebrations, I have Galentine’s (sometimes, this year I just don’t have the time), I have people around me who do want to celebrate the big moments. And I have to always remind myself, I chose this life, and I chose this path and I wouldn’t change a second of it.