Are You Guys Brothers?

     Let us raise our glasses together and toast with love and deep gratitude all of the people in our lives with whom we were once best of friends but who we no longer seek to see. We may Google their names for updates on their lives but we don’t really want to re-establish contact and put the work into maintaining intimacy.

    Letting go of relationships that at one time felt like the most important and meaningful connections of my life usually troubles me terribly for a long time but it seems to happen over and over again — not only for me but for most people I know. How and why does that happen? There must be a reason.

     There are some intimate friendships that seem to last forever but for them to do so, I believe, they must be flexible enough to change constantly to accommodate the growth and interests of the individuals. Other intimate relationships last because of the consistency of geographic proximity. But most really close relationships I have had that have ended did so not as much because of change of zip codes but rather because the other person and I grew in different personal or spiritual directions and we didn’t have the interest or the energy to do the work that was necessary to stay in each others lives. We simply ran out of steam, patience, the ability to forgive, need, attraction, common ground, motivation or understanding.

     Though baffled at one level as to how these very special people who at one time inspired deeply-felt holiday messages could one day get dropped from my Christmas card list, I also know better than to label such friendships as “failures” simply because they ended. What we shared was real and important to us both at the time, and we are both better people because our paths intersected, but we don’t need each other anymore or do we feel taken care of in the same rewarding way. And that’s both okay and natural, I think.

    Years and years ago, a kooky therapist, with whom I had only met twice, told me of his dream about me in which I was climbing Mount Fuji and as I climbed I would travel and camp with others and then break camp and head up on my own until I encountered another group of travelers with whom I would walk and camp and then break camp again and head higher on my own. My need to feel special at that time prompted me to interpret his dream as a prophecy of my spiritual path. Instead, I now think he was aptly describing the life journey that we’re all called to make — to keep leaving the security of the familiar to explore the vistas of our visions. We don’t “use” others in the process. We enter symbiotic relationships that feed us until we are pulled apart without completely understanding why. It is the way of the world, I think. At least it is for those of us who climb.

     So, thank you from the bottom of my heart to the dear friends of my past. Some of you have joyfully re-entered my life but all of you are and always will be essential parts of my being. I toast the love we shared.