Friends

Have you noticed how the meaning of "friends" has changed?

It used to be, not so many years ago, that a friend was someone you had known for many years, you knew their family history and their likes and dislikes. Most importantly, you did things together. Maybe you did nothing more than go to garage sales, or shopping, or to just chat over the back-yard fence.

With MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo and a variety of other Web sites, the term "friend" has come to mean anyone you socialize with on the Internet.

I have Internet friends from Australia to Wales and many of the states, plus several in Canada. We play word games together, we chat through Yahoo or Google, and sometimes we even visit over the computer just as we would on the telephone.

So we obviously don't socialize in the same sense as we did in the pre-Internet days. That doesn't mean I haven't found some good friends through these sites.

Some of my best laughs have been late at night chatting with a friend in St. Louis. A friend in Pennsylvania and I have shared some good days and bad days via Internet chat and telephone conversations.

A young friend in Australia has shared his hopes and dreams with me. I've encouraged him when he needed it and he's encouraged me when I needed it. Several have become my friends because we share an interest in loving and rescuing animals.

A friend in England has drastically different religious views than mine, and we have on occasion engaged in lively debate. A young woman in Russia asks for my explanation of American phrases and customs as she studies English in college.

Our friends are no longer restricted to just those around our community, for our community has widened to include the whole world. They are just as dear as any friends I have had, despite our friendship being different from how we once defined friendship.

It's not that I have given up personal friendships in my community, because I haven't.

Just as I have redefined the meaning of friends, I have also redefined and enlarged my meaning of community. It brings us new respect for our similarities and our differences.

Friends and Change

I learned yesterday that a friend at church will be moving to another town in a few weeks.

"But you didn't ask MY permission," I scolded her.

We become comfortable with our friends. We know where to reach them by telephone or computer, we know where they sit in church and we know what to expect from them in daily life.

Then, when they say they are moving, it upsets our comfort zone. All of a sudden they are not so ... so.... well, so predictable.

I can't blame my friend for moving. She wants to be closer to her children and grandchildren. That's one of the best reasons for choosing to move.

On a selfish note, however, I can't help but feel just a little bit abandoned.

I haven't moved around very much in my lifetime. I live about 140 miles from where I spent the first 47 years of my life. I've lived in North Platte for 22 years. So it just figures out that I have had more friends moving away from me than I have left behind.

Given that, you would think I would get used to having friends move on. I never do. I still remember Erma, the young friend from junior high who took me trick or treating my first Halloween I lived in town. I remember my girlfriend from junior high through high school who was married the Christmas after we graduated from high school and she moved to the East Coast. A dear friend while our children were young moved with her family to a town 150 miles away. With everyone's busy schedules, it might as well have been a thousand miles away.

Over the years the list has grown, as have my memories. I still sometimes long for those days with my friends.

But, life goes on. My friend will make new friends, as will I.

Yet, one of the spokes in the wheel of life will be missing. More may be added, but never replaced.