Endings in Friendship
Includes 3 Journal Prompts to guide you through your Reason, Season and Lifetime friends and help you reconcile any loss
Some people bring you a million blessings
Some people teach you a million lessons
All that I lеarned, it wasn't my turn, it wasn't the right time
Somе people come in your life for a reason
Others they come in your life for a season
But, baby, you are a lifetime
Justin Bieber - Lifetime
I have, several times and each under different circumstances. Some of these have felt like a mutual ending and others parallel to “ghosting” - literally going from BFF’s to strangers practically overnight. One time this happened was just after COVID and it was genuinely more painful than any romantic breakup I have experienced. I took it to therapy almost every week for a year and to this day am left with more questions than I started with.
If this occurred in a romantic context there would be a clear process in place for how to heal and how to talk about the pain (openly without fear of judgement) but when it comes to friendships I really don’t believe we have been adequately prepared for processing these ending and in my experience, it can bring feelings of shame and self doubt to the surface.
It was from this point that I commenced my quest for consistently and intentionally loving my friends and I want to share it with you. What does this mean? Basically, doing (in my opinion) the bare minimum.
Communicating, showing up and doing more than just “checking in” every now and again. Actually making sure that people know you care about them.
Lets look at it this way, if you had been in a romantic relationship for 3 years, and all of a sudden you stopped caring to reply to messages, or stopped wanting to spend significant moments with them it would be a for sure sign that you needed to look at your relationship. Signalling that perhaps you were no longer interested in having them as your partner. You’d probably sit down, talk about it and maybe choose to go your separate ways.
When drifts happen in friendships, why should we see it any differently?
Why would we assume that our distance wouldn’t hurt someone or bring something up for them?
How could we feel OK knowing that we are showing up in a totally different way and expect this to be OK for someone else?
If we experienced this from a romantic partner, I am pretty sure the WhatsApp group would be popping off with messages of outrage and anger on your behalf.
My last article offered the idea that Friendship is not passive. It is active and it is intentional. Since then, I have seen a lot of posts on Instagram around how “catch up culture” is the death of friendship and I have to agree.
The reality is, life is busy and there will always be other things to be getting on with. Therefore the simple act of choosing to step away from this busy-ness to spend time with someone, whether be in person or showing up for them virtually (ie. text/WhatsApp/FaceTime etc) is an act of Love in itself.
For me, meeting up once a year to catch someone up on everything they have missed when they (or I) haven’t bothered checking in, doesn’t feel like a rewarding nor energising way to connect with my people. That’s not to say that you must live in each others pockets, but there has to be something about a relationship that is active on both sides for me to consider it a real friendship.
Like all living beings, shedding is a natural and necessary part of growth. Like how snakes shed their skin once a month in a ritualistic fashion to accommodate growth and shed old, damaged, outer layers. Uncomfortable to imagine, and just as uncomfortable to experience, so no wonder we are left feeling tender when relationships shift.
If we zoom out a bit and think about how we continue to evolve as we experience more from life, it’s natural that things change. Our careers, locations and identities are in flux. The old you and new you can compete for centre stage depending on where you spend most of your time. If you want to live an authentic life, where you can be your truest version of you, then unfortunately some things may need to shed to make room.
It can be helpful to shift the way in which we look at endings by taking the time to acknowledge the role things have played for us.
—Enter the relevance of Justin Bieber’s absolute banger, ‘Lifetime’.—
The notion of “Reasons, Seasons or Lifetimes” offers a beautiful and positive way to conceptualise the friendships you hold; those present, but most importantly those that have changed shape, or gone completely without feeling as much guilt or regret.
Authors note - as you read through this, it may be that you find concepts of a ‘Lifetime’ friend more important or valid than a ‘Reason’ friend, but this is the point I want to make. We need to try and hold each of these concepts as equally important.
Now, what do I mean by Reasons, Seasons or Lifetimes?
Reasons can be considered the ‘mirrors’ or ‘teachers’. Those who enter your life to help you grow, solve a problem or bring your awareness to something you hadn’t considered. The people who help instil change within you or your world.
Journal Prompt: Think of a person who challenged your perspective or pushed you out of your comfort zone. This can be a longer standing friend or someone whose time in your life may have been brief.
What did they teach you about yourself that you might not have learned otherwise?
Seasons - the ‘companions’ who walk alongside you through a specific era. It doesn’t matter what that era is, maybe it was university, a first job or a hobby the point is that they provided shared joy for that period.
Journal Prompt: Think of a person who you have drifted from. Perhaps the time between meet ups gets longer. The onus might feel like it’s on either one of you to send the ‘check in’ message once in a while.
What specific version of you did they get to witness and celebrate and how does that version of you differ from who you are today?
Lifetimes - the ‘roots’, the rare few who evolve alongside you. They offer you a foundation of safety, regardless of external changes you both experience.
Journal Prompt: Think of a your ‘lifetime’ person(s). Who is ever present? Who do you feel connected to on a level which means that time, distance and space from each other doesn’t feel like an ending.
What is the thread that keeps you connected even when you aren’t physically together or speaking every day?
I was planning on going into depth on all of these but I realised as I was writing I had too much to say and therefore I am going to follow up with a more in-depth run through of each of the above, inclusive of examples and some more prompts but for now I leave you with the below:
Does looking at your relationships through this lens help you come to terms with them changing or ending?
Does this wake something up in you, is there someone you’re missing that you want to reconnect with more intentionally?
Are there still elements that still feel raw even when going through each of these?
This isn’t about eradicating all sadness when thinking about friendship, it is all about a subtle perception shift. If there are still pieces that feel hard to hold or in need of nurturing or exploring, therapy can be a really good place to do this.
I offer Single Session Therapy to individuals who want to work through a specific block, and when it comes to reframing narratives it can be super helpful.
More information available here - https://oliviamortoncounselling.com/1%3A1-therapy
Happy journalling and see you soon!
Ox