DNR

Last week, some friends and I had several conversations about change that my brain hasn't been able to put down, hasn't been able to process and hasn't been able to answer all the questions that are coming up, and all the questions that the questions are causing!! 

Change.  

Why is it such a hard thing?

And why is it even harder when what is changing is friendships?  

How do friendships go from talking, texting, chatting on a daily basis, to zero communication?  How do you meet a friend for weekly coffee dates, to being told they just need "time and space"?  How do go from having established a mutual friendship, a trusted friendship, a needed friendship, to having that friendship just be erased from your life?! 

The questions!  The question's questions!!

I don't like to think that friendships are "on a need basis".  That certain friends only fill our lives for a desired reason.  Sure there are different levels of friendships, different depths of friendship. But "friendship" isn't a casual word.  It's a 50/50 venture you take with another person.  And both parties are expected to give 100% of their 50%.  You are my friend and I will give you my all because you and your friendship are worth that to me.  

Why else be friends?

So what happens when the other 50% starts to wane?  What happens when 50% becomes 35%?  Or 20%?  What happens when invites to coffee are left unanswered and messages ignored?  

When does a friendship stop being a friendship? 

At what point do you assess the situation and make the life or death decision?  When do you determine that the cost is just too great and the suffering outweights the benefits?  

At what point does a friendship lose its chances of being resuscitated?  

Do friendship even have a DNR date?

They must.  Because sadly friendships do end and then you have you refer to people not as "friends" but people you "know" or even more tragically as people you "used to be friends" with.

 

I know there are obvious answers to a lot of these questions - "We had a fight", "Our lives got busy and we lost touch" - and so on and so on.  And I know that some issues are just too big to repair the friendship.  

But if one party is willing and making an effort, is all hope really lost?

Is it still DNR?

 

*This isn't my usual storytelling and I'm definitely not this philosophical normally, but IDK I was just thinking things.