Hello Internet!
I hope everyone had a fantastic week! Here on the website we had great pieces get published. On Sunday we had a personal Weekly Blog all about Depression, Anxiety, and The Stupid Side of Your Brain. Wednesday I published a poem all about Country Roads and the wonderful views they can hold. And on Friday I published an Image Prompt piece about this Science Fiction train robbery titled Catch The Train. If you haven’t read any of those, I highly recommend you do. In my humble opinion, they are all pretty good and I enjoyed writing them. It seems like some of you already read them and liked them, so that makes me happy. This week was also special because we reached some major milestones for the website. You can read all about them in yesterday’s Bulletin Board post all about New Milestones and Accomplishments, but long story, short we reached 200 Followers here on WordPress and surpassed 2017’s numbers in only six months. So thank you for making that happen. No matter if you’ve been reading my stuff for a while or you just started, I really appreciate each and every one of you and the support you give me. It means so much to me.
So yeah that’s what happened this week, but there was also a bit of roller coaster of events that happened this week which made me think about this week’s Weekly Blog topic. There’s a lot of directions I could go when talking about “Adult Friendships” but in particular I wanted to talk a little bit about how friendships can grow and change as you transition from a child to an adult. To start out I should tell you about the beginning of my week. This week, I went to a funeral for one of my friend’s grandmothers. I know the grandma decently well since they lived just a few blocks from me, and I would hang out at her house from time to time. The friend in question was my best friend in Elementary School up to Middle School. Starting in High School we kind of hung out with different people and our friendship dwindled to more of an acquaintanceship. We still talked every now and then, but we just had different interests and didn’t take any of the same classes. I took college classes in High School and he went to a vocational school. Nothing wrong with either, but this just lead us to drift a part. We hadn’t seen each other since High School Graduation, but when we saw each other, he came over and gave me a big hug. It was like nothing changed. We just talked to each other about college and how life was going. We shared memories of me riding my bike over to his grandmother’s house and how we used to play Pokemon and Yugioh together. We laughed and talked. It was great. And that’s how some friendships are when you are adults. You don’t hang out at all, but when you do get to see each other, you catch up, laugh, and carry on like you’re good friends.
Of course not all friendships are like that. Some don’t have happy endings. That’s the hard thing about growing up and not being able to hang out with your friends all the time. Sometimes that lasting connection stays and sometimes it just dies out. An example of this is the person I considered to be my best friend in High School. We would hang out all the time and I was basically a part of her family. Well after we both graduated High School, we attended different colleges. She focused on something in the sphere of science and went out for sports, while I was a nerdy English major who loved reading and playing video games. We tried to make plans to see each other at least once a month which was a huge drop off from seeing each other almost everyday in High School. It worked out for a while, but eventually it seemed like I cared more about the friendship than she did. This is my very biased opinion, so maybe she would disagree if she read this, but it seemed like she cared more about the friends she was making in college than preserving the friendships with the people she went to High School with. We really drifted a part when I graduated college and she ended up moving to another state. Even though we both have cellphones, our text conversations stopped and we haven’t spoken to each other since the early part of this year. It’s sad that someone that I considered to be my best friend all throughout High School is no longer a friend, but sometimes that happens.
Now I didn’t write this to bash her or blame her for anything. Again this is my very biased view on the situation, and I’m not mad at her or anything. That’s just an example of what can happen when you grow up and don’t get to see people anymore. Sometimes bridges are sustained and sometimes they just fall a part due to low maintenance. Personally I’m someone who favors loyalty and effort in my relationships. That’s a really big thing for me. I’m someone who does not handle long distance relationships and friendships very well. I want to see you and hang out with you as much as I can. I also want to see that you are trying to make things work and are willing to put in the effort even if we can’t physically see each other that much. I work really hard to make my friends happy and hang out with them. Obviously friendships (or any relationship) are not going to be 50/50. Often times it is skewed 60/40 one way or the other where you think you’re putting in more effort or the other person is trying harder in the relationship. That back and forth is normal and is not alarming. However when a friendship is 90/10 consistently, that’s a sign that one person cares a lot more than the other person about preserving that friendship. Again, relationships aren’t perfect and won’t always be balanced, but there needs to be effort by both parties to keep it afloat. We like to believe that all friendships are going to last forever and we’re going to marry our High School sweetheart, but that doesn’t always happen. Sometimes people are only meant to be in our lives for a short amount of time and sometimes they are meant to be a a part for the entirety of our lives. I still cherish the memories I had with people in Elementary School, High School, and even college even though I might not hang out with them anymore. I try to persevere those memories without allowing today’s circumstances taint them. I can appreciate those memories for what they are and be ok with the fact that I no longer talk to those people or see them very often.
Now I quickly want to talk about some friends I still have in my life because I don’t want to end this Weekly Blog on a sad note and I want to prove I actually have friends. Two of my closest friends I went to High School with and we still hang out as much as we can. We’re very busy people, but we still make an effort to see each other. This weekend we got the chance to hang out, eat some delicious food, and just enjoy each other’s company. It just fills me with so much joy to see them and hang out. It doesn’t have to be anything special. Just throw on some Netflix and let’s talk. That’s all I need. These friendships aren’t 50/50 either. Sometimes it’s 60/40 favoring them and sometimes its 40/60 favoring me, but that’s ok. I put in the effort to hang out with them and they put in the effort to hang out with me. That’s what matters. I also made friends in college that I try to see once a month or so depending on their schedules, and we pick up right where we left off when I hang out with them. We don’t get to see each other all the time, but we really care about each other and we make the effort to keep the friendship going. That effort goes a long way and it makes me sure that these friendships will last a lifetime.
That’s probably a good spot to end this week’s Weekly Blog. I could go on for a while about Adult Friendships, but that will have to be another Weekly Blog sometime in the future. I hoped you enjoyed that Weekly Blog. If you did feel free to give it a like or leave a comment down below. Maybe you can tell me about a long lasting friendship you have or what you care about most when it comes to friendship. You can also leave compliments, complaints, or criticisms down there in the comments and I will take a look at them.
Thanks again for all the support and I hope you have a fantastic week!
-Allen_The_Writer
Header Photo Credit to Shen Comix
http://shencomix.com/post/139848176229/how-to-make-friends-as-an-adult-image-twitter
Allen The Writer 