On Friendship, and the Strangeness of Class Reunions

Two summers ago, I went to my high school reunion. It was at Corner Pub in downtown Nashville. It was almost like a joke that no one wanted to tell out loud: 60 Catholic school alumni walk into a bar, and the bartender says, “Welcome home.”

I was sitting at a table with my friends Maria and Jenny, and some other people we knew. Our other classmates gradually walked in as the night went on. At one point, a handful of people we knew came in. Jenny looked up, saw them, and said, “Here come some more old friends I haven’t talked to in five years.” And then she got up and reintroduced herself to people she had already known for a long time.

As I watched her do that, I felt the loss of so many friends who had become strangers to me. I was in a place surrounded by people whose presence felt so familiar and yet so strange all at once. I had made promises with some of them to keep in touch after graduation. We exchanged email addresses and phone numbers. We connected with each other on Facebook and other social media outlets. And, for awhile, we kept our promises.

But after the first 2-3 years of college, we drifted away from each other. Phone calls and emails went unmade and unsent. We became preoccupied with school work and other personal matters. Some people who left town to go to school stayed away from Nashville during holidays and breaks. And, before any of us ever knew it, it was as if we never knew each other at all. All those memories of spending time together in middle school cross country practice, chatting by each other’s lockers during high school morning breaks, encouraging each other during hard times, and attending each other’s extracurricular events ultimately meant nothing. We had become just another face in each other’s yearbooks.

Time is a fickle and capricious being. It can bring great people into our lives who love us unconditionally, who cheer for our successes, who hold us up during the hardest parts of our lives, and who actively seek our good, even if it means sacrificing for our sakes.

But it can also separate us from those we’ve grown to love. The same forces that turn acquaintances into best buddies can also do the reverse. This happens a lot during young adulthood. As people grow older, time and distance can take them apart. They leave town to go to college or grad school, or head out after graduation to pursue the jobs they’ve been preparing for. They get married and have kids of their own to care for. Those new responsibilities keep them preoccupied, and rightfully so.

And people try to be understanding with each other, and give each other space to do what they need to do to care for their families and attend to the responsibilities of daily life. Sometimes they give each other space to the point where they’re no longer a part of each other’s lives. But still an unspoken pain exists; a yearning to return to the days when they were a tangible presence in each other’s lives, and not a mere phantom. “Liking” each other’s Facebook posts and sending texts and emails can only do so much to ease the pain.

For me personally, I’ve always struggled to build friendships with others. I’ve been very quiet and shy my whole life, so working up the courage to reach out to people and get to know them is very hard for me. And I know I’ve lost touch with so many great people who have been a part of my life. And it hurts to think about it. I see people all around me who have friends they’ve known since childhood, and I wonder if I could ever form a life-long bond like that with someone else. I wonder if adulthood will separate me from those friends who loved me when I was young and foolish.

To those who are my friends now, please don’t be a stranger. Your presence in my life is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, I’m eternally grateful for your love throughout the years, and I never want it to end. To those who have lost touch with me: I haven’t forgotten you, and I’m sorry if I did anything that caused us to drift apart. You’ve always had a special place in my heart, and are more than welcome to come back into my life if you ever need me. I’m always here for you no matter what. To all of you: you’ve become a part of me, and of my life, whether you acknowledge it or not. It is as the poet John Donne once wrote: “No man is an island.” Please don’t let us become islands. I love and miss all of you.