The Definition of Friendship

A main requirement of friendship for me is the way the two people interact with each other. If it's a friendship like the one between the Heathers in the movie "Heathers" then it's one full of spite and hatred and anger... in other words, it's not a real friendship. for me a real friendship is when people care about each other and candidly talk with one another, not to the point of brutality, but to the point of understanding. I also feel that the success of friendships depends greatly on the chemistry between the people in it. How their sentences feed off from one another's, how things loosen when they're around each other, protection doesn't suffocate and the companionship makes all things in life better.
That is my definition of friendship. But how does this definition change when the people within it change. Some might say that a true friendship would remain through all change. And they would be wrong (unless of course both friends change in the same way).
As we change, as our lives expand and shrink, so do our friends. We grow closer to some and farther from others. How many of us can actually say that our best friend from elementary school was our best friend in middle school who continued to be our best friend in high school and college and is still our best friend now (and, sorry, siblings our family members do not count)? Very, very few. And the bond between to very close friends, which one day is so important, so necessary, can turn into something very sad-- proof of change in a life. And, more than likely, that bond won't break but more wither away until it is gone.
I, luck would have it, had the same best friend from the time I was three. She and I were nearly inseparable. I never imagined being closer to any other person (in a platonic relationship, that is). We grew together through elementary school and middle school and junior high and high school. We changed together. And then in our second year of college we fell apart. I couldn't see the end of it until it was gone. See what I mean? Very sad.
At the time I thought nothing could be worse than losing the person I was closest to in the whole damn world. Can you ever find that kind of friend again? Someone who you can talk about everything with? Someone with whom even the unimportant stuff like cereal mascots or different shapes of ice is important? Where everything said strengthens your friendship? Where moments are never wasted, fights are temporary, and even boredom can be kind of interesting?
It turns out, you can. You can find someone else who fits with the new you better (or could it still be the old you depending on the person of the pair who changes) and you start over. And when you start this next time, you can hope that there won't be much change. And you can hope you'll be lucky enough that when you've known this replacement (for lack of a better word) long enough that you'll realize that they were not so much a replacement, but that they were a step up. Hopefully you'll be lucky that the friendship is far greater than the ones of the past. Now, all you'll have to do is pray that this one won't change. That all changes will be minor. And you hope that if it must end, you can see it coming so you can prepare for the fallout. Because while I believe that a friendship can withstand a move and a marriage and children and jobs and political affiliation, the one thing I don't believe it can weather is the change of a personality, the change of that original chemistry.
Due to recent events, I am worried it could be coming, that change in chemistry. But I've always been a worrier. Let's hope there's no need. Close friends are few and farther between. I've lost one, I don't want to lose another.


Does this things even make any sense? Probably not. Writing done at four am might not necessarily be lucid.