Because Things Fall Apart

How easily we unravel. Things we used to do, we do no longer. Time and experiences have taught us to continue, stop, or try new ways. As we grow up, we delve into our careers, start families, and carry on with our lives. Our perspectives change. We change. Our friends change. We go from stage to stage, until we emerge as butterflies. We spread our wings and start to fly.

As we travel through time and space, we find that the world is a much rougher place than we thought. We find that as we, and those around us, mature, we become less forgiving. Some like the brightness of our wings, and some don’t. The latter find other butterflies just like them, with whom they feel some kind of oneness, camaraderie. Although, as we often find, even times we feel we’ve found a fit, time and circumstances change things. So, from monarch to monarch, we flit and float, and we continue to seek out those just like us and a place in which we fit.

As humans, we seek people with interests similar to ours. We want people to spend our time with, call up when we’re down, celebrate life’s blessings with, and to whom we can be accountable. The interesting thing about friendships is that there is seldom any one person we share every interest with, which is fine. So, we have those we watch sappy movies with, others who like the great outdoors with whom we camp, those who call us out when we aren’t being true to ourselves, etc. We can’t possibly be all things to any one person, and that’s okay.

Not all friends are meant to stay in our lives forever. In our attempts to find those just like us, we find that those we once thought were just like us really aren’t, and sometimes that’s just fine. They transition; they change. They morph into different people, or we find they were like that all along but simply went along with the crowd and are now their own person, which may not jive with us, and that is life. Maybe it’s not them, it’s us. Maybe as we watched them, we didn’t realize that we ourselves were changing. That can be a good thing, because change can be good. Sometimes we change for the better…other times, not so much. There are some “butterflies” though, different as they may be, that remain steady, bonds growing stronger with time, despite them going their separate ways. Through time, transitions, and troubles, they bear it all together. When their paths cross again, they pick up where they left off, and it’s like they never even skip a beat.

Birds of a feather, they sure do flock together. What we once were, we may be no longer, but that doesn’t mean we’ve changed on the inside. We grow up. We mature; that’s what life is about. Things change; we change. That’s okay. True friendships grow. They don’t become stagnant or have a stench. Issues may arise, but true friends hash them out. True friends will have their ups and downs, but truth, love, and understanding keep their relationship strong.

Because things fall apart, we need people in our lives who will be there for us and for whom we can also serve as a shoulder on which to lean.