Seasonal Friendships: The Loves We’ve Left Behind

For as long as I’ve known what it is to make a friend, I’ve been expected to put my friends into tidy, neatly wrapped boxes. To declare one special friend my “best” friend. To separate “real” friends from acquaintances. To offer my “close contacts” deeper access to my digital life. Young people today talk a lot about “fake” friends, too. While that might not be my preferred adjective (fair-weather? two-faced?), I do know what they mean.

Before we even mention a name, we’ll describe friends in the same breath as a setting. “He’s a work friend.” “She’s a friend from college.” “We play pickleball together.” As we share their names, we root our friends in stories. We’re called to establish a hierarchy, from a beloved best friend to a “frenemy” iced out years ago. These titles and stories are the ultimate act of affection, of devotion, in a society that only recognizes friendships with words. (And, of course, sometimes bracelets.)

But what about the words we don’t say? What about the friends we don’t speak to anymore?

We often talk now about ghosting, yet we ignore our ghosts. I can’t be the only one out there who has enjoyed meaningful, reciprocal relationships with people I’ve loved and left behind. I can see a handful of them in my head right now. My grandmother would have called them “dear.” They meant so much to me at the time, but - for countless reasons - life pulled us into different directions. I grew up alongside them, though. I value every minute I spent with them. With their imprint and influence, I evolved into a better person than I would’ve been without them. I have my fingers crossed that they feel the same way about me.

Still, I’ve never known what to call them. Because our friendships evolved into a loss, they read like sad stories. However, I don’t feel that way. While there’s grief in losing any relationship, I think of them most in the joyful moments that remind me of them. A song comes on the radio that makes me remember a friend I adored in high school. A movie randomly trending on Netflix instantly conjures a movie night watching the same one with my college roommate. As I scan through baby pictures of my oldest son, I find one of us together at the park with a friend and her baby daughter. They moved away a decade ago, but they feel so close peering out from the blue screen in my palm. You get the idea. They’re not in my life right now, but when I think of them, I’m smiling.

Seasonal friendships

I only learned this term recently. Initially, I chafed against it. To me, the term seemed flippant, like it’s meant to describe people being used and then discarded. It grossed me out.

In time, I turned the word over on my tongue and came to love its descriptive power. Seasons aren’t inconstant as much as they’re interlinked. Without winter, with its dark days and barren earth, spring wouldn’t have the time to bloom. Without the sad, empty space in the wake of an old friendship, we maybe wouldn’t have the room (and time and energy) to invest in a new one.

Our culture seems to value forever friendships the most. Perhaps they speak to positive character traits, like loyalty and commitment - but they also require a fair amount of good luck. It’s easier to keep long-term relationships when we don’t move away or take the new job or have the baby or travel or change our political views. It’s easier to keep people close when we don’t change.

My friends from past seasons added such beauty and richness to my life. I still remember the conversations we had. Yet I don’t believe that if I were to dial their numbers today, we would pick up exactly where we left off. Because we’ve evolved into different people. The seasons have changed.

November, with its golden color and crunchy leaves and that first nip of biting cold weather, stands as an excellent reminder that changing is the world’s natural state of being. Ours, too. And we’re stronger people for all the friendships that have supported us, even those that only lasted for a season.

When we speak now about our seasonal friendships, I hope we’re smiling. I know I am.