Friendships in Transition

It's Thanksgiving in Canada and so I travelled back to the small town I grew up in to visit my family and friends for the weekend. There's something about coming home that you expect to find all the long lost "good times," yet that's usually not how it works out.

I've had a bit of a rough weekend. I met up with my best-friend from childhood, whom I haven't seen for almost a year. In spending a couple hours talking with her, I realized that we really don't have that much in common any more.

It's hard to come to that realization because then you feel all alone. My one and only friend who has been by my side since childhood, the person I'd hang out with every day, the person who's family I considered my own and who's home was my second home, has chosen a different path and seems to have gone astray.

Part of me wants to cling on for dear life and make the friendship endure. I want to have a part in her life and yet I know that we are being pulled in different directions. It broke my heart to hear her describe, with frequent use of four letter words, her experiences of the past year. I want to be a part of her life, but I realize I don't want to be a part of the life she lives. I guess it's so tough because I love her from the bottom of my heart and I know that she is capable of seeing beyond the drugs, alcohol and sex that permeate our society. I feel as if I've abandoned her and if only I had made more of an effort to be more involved in her life a few years ago I could have made a difference. Now my only resource seems to be to turn to prayer.

Sure, I have solid friends at university who share my values and seem to understand me, yet they don't know where I'm coming from and thus I feel that they don't really know who I am.

Our Lady of Good Counsel, pray for us.
Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.