Friends: My Interpretation Of What They Are

I was thinking the other night while I was getting to sleep, how being on one of those flat elevators at the airport is a great metaphor for describing how friends come and go in our life.

While we are on them some people stay at the same speed as us, going only as fast as the elevator takes them, others might stay at our speed momentarily and then move and others are in such a rush to get forward as fast as is possible for them.

To me friends are like this in many ways. I believe we can have connections with the same people throughout our whole life, a friend who will continue to be in resonance with us, although their path won’t be the same, they will continue to be around us in some form. Then we can meet people who are only in our life for what seems like one moment, and then often to great sadness we will not see them again.

However, when we are at an airport we are there for a purpose and have to follow strict times or we will miss our flight. We are not there looking for something to do and stand around.

At times we can feel the need to hold onto our friends, through our memory’s with them and the sense of safety and belonging they bring to our life. However just like being on the elevator there comes a time when some of the people on there will have to go their separate ways.

We have all heard of the saying old friends are the best friends, when I reflect on this view I can see that this is not always the case and could be described as a half truth.  I think the people we see as friends are the ones we have a real connection with, regardless of whether we have known them for a month or many years, and we will know in our heart who those people are.

As in many ways I believe that very often friends are people who validate each other on some level and if there comes a time when one of them changes their views radically or even slightly this could lead to a gradual or sudden distancing between friends. Especially, if one of the friends feels threatened by the changes being made and doesn’t want to change themselves. Or maybe it’s just a case of its time to let go and move on and appreciate the time you have had together.

''Friends are a gift and not a right'' – Oliver Cooper

My conclusion to this would be that people come and go from our life, each offering us the chance to grow and to heal our wounds. And that the people who are right for us will always appear at the right time in our lives.

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Oliver J R Cooper
http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk/