The older we get, the less friends we tend to have.
I’ve been aware of this lately as life transitions like moving city, starting a new job, or starting a new relationship can tend to shake up your friendships. And having a baby has definitely qualified as a life event that affected my friendships.
It’s a hard part of any transition, one we don’t talk much about!
The loss & disconnect with old connections that comes with change is a form of grief. And the in-between moment where you haven’t quite found your new people just yet can be painfully lonely & uncomfortable. Especially when you’ve always had plenty of close friends surrounding you.
As I was speaking to a friend struggling with this aspect of life transitions, I realized that I’ve gotten quite adept at making new friends (given my knack at over-indulging in life transitions 🙃). I’ve come to know the pain of losing a bestie I thought I would always be close to too many times to count. There’s no other way to put it — it absolutely sucks.
And yet on the flip side, with that loss I have been able to discerningly create a friendship circle that reflects exactly who I am today, rather than who I was 15 odd years ago (around the time it starts getting hard to make new friends).
So while I have less friends than the person who hasn’t moved city 5 times in the last 10 years, none of my current friends are stale. But it took me a long while to figure out how to go about building this circle I now feel deeply recognized & energized by….
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