Monday, March 7, 2011

Six Degrees of Friendship

As I've previously mentioned, I love reading several of my favorite celeb's blogs. (#1 http://www.sophiabush.com/blog/ , #2 http://www.bjgofficial.com/) I highly recommend checking them out at some point. A few days ago I started reading GOOP (Gwyneth Paltrow's Blog) and happily discovered some great articles/ideas! You should definitely check it out over at http://goop.com/! After perusing the site for a while, I found an article about friendship. For those of you that have not (or will not) check out her blog, it's divided into several categories and then Gwynie poses a question/idea/theme and has guest editors/writers/friends/whoever respond. Most entries have several responses so it's pretty interesting to see the variation.

Now, on to the friendship article - which you can find here http://goop.com/newsletter/71/en/
As per her usual, there are several responses to the posed questions regarding old friends and growing apart. The next to last article is my favorite, because it basically hits the nail on the head. We all make friends throughout life based on varying circumstances. Whether they are childhood neighbors, that classmate you bonded with in junior high because you both felt out of place at that time, high school sports buddies, college roomies, party friends, or drinking buddies. They've carried us through the years and helped make us who we are today. Because let's face it, our friends influence us in ways that we may not even realize. But as we grow up and become real world adults (AH!), we all start taking different paths and sometimes those paths aren't going in the same direction. High school friends or college drinking buddies start to see that their plans (hopes, dreams, visions whatever you want to call them) are completely different from when they became friends 5, 10, 15 years ago. I'm sure some of you can pin point specific friends that fall into such categories, I know I can! I can also say that I no longer have a long time childhood friend, because things changed the second she became engaged and once married, that was it. I still have many great memories from our years of friendship, and remember them fondly.

We all think we wont/don't change, but let's face it we do. We have to change, the world would be an incredibly boring place if we didn't. But what to do with a friendship you've carried for so many years with amazing memories? Just let it go? The GOOP article addresses this. Several authors talk about possible solutions and how to approach the situation. I've never really sat down and talked to a friend about "divorcing" them (that childhood friend and I had more of a falling out over the situation than a parting of ways) but let me know if you have/will do it, I'd like to hear how it goes. In my other experiences with old friends, we've just sort of grown apart. We are no longer besties or bff's, we're not enemies, and don't hate each other either, but we're definitely not the friends we once were (I don't know if it's just me or if they realize it too).

I've always considered this to be "learning who your real friends are", but Gwyneth's GOOP article really got me thinking and evaluating all the friendships I currently have, and looking at each one and deciphering what kind of friendship it really is. I decided that I possess a couple of the greatest life-long friends a girl could as for and beyond that the rest are just friends, old and new, they may come and go, but the lifer's will always be there. No matter how long we go without talking or seeing each other, it's as if no time has passed. This self reflection into my friendships also taught me that I censor information when talking with different people. Now of course, we all do this. But, I personally have several friends who at various points in my life were considered in the "circle of trust" and would have never been censored from such important information! Alas, things change. I believe there are only 2 people still in that circle after 10 years, and I can say with no hesitation that those 2 will be there for the rest of my life.

I know to some this seems harsh or scary, but in reality it's just life and reading that article started me thinking, which led to some major evaluations. Hopefully this didn't bore you to death or upset you in creating your own reflections. I just thought there might be some of you that would like to journey through the friendship world with me (and all the other readers of GOOP who were swept into that article).

xoxo
kris






2 comments:

  1. nope...i will never sign the divorce papers...unless you pay me alimony! :)

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  2. Ha! Well, you have nothing to worry about Jo! I would never divorce my gossip buddy or source for fabulous art ;)

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