Many people in our lives are close to us situationaly - we were once in the same place at the same time and that gave us common ground for a friendship. Others match up on many levels beyond the here and now and are lifelong friends. And yet, we are all on different lines on the map, moving through our lives, making choices that change us. Sometimes the lines take us to the other side of the globe and we never come back to the same place, or when we do it’s a different place because we’ve changed.
One of the biggest and hardest lessons for me this year was that you can’t always take your friends with you. After all, the great constant in life is change. When you live a dynamic life, such as I do, you often change much more rapidly than others you are connected with. It’s not something you can stop. I’ve actually felt it before, thousands of miles from home, under a foreign sky, much closer to the sun on a high elevation trail in India, realizing that I was expanding. That the journey was shaping me, and I knew in that moment I would never be able to return home and fit into the same box again. Not that people are boxes, but relationships and friendships are in a way. Some are based only on the things you have in common at that point in time. As time moves on and you no longer have the day to day in common, when you meet again, you are just two people. Respect may still be there, but the bond has been erased, and the connection has no spark.
Returning to Bend, after living on so many different islands, after becoming a teacher, after having lives in my hands every day, after undergoing such sharp experiences that pierced my heart and it grew back in a different shape, I was grateful to see my friends again. Some were comfortable and sweet and immediately clicked as we laughed together, still finding the same things funny, still able to understand one another mutually. And yet, others lacked that spark. Nothing ignited and the connection starved for something to feed on. We were just two people with a mutual past, and the unconditional respect only shone on my side. Boy, that was hard. But I know, you can’t force it. If someone you love can no longer accept who you’ve morphed into and the choices you’ve made, that’s heartbreaking but it is also part of the journey. Just as I can’t stop expanding because I love someone, they can’t stop judging when who I am has changed.
Overall, it makes me so incredibly grateful that I have the lifelong friends I do, and that Tim and I continue to grow together rather than apart. When Tim and I started dating five years ago, we were very different versions of ourselves than we are now.
We even physically look different. He looks younger and more handsome, whereas I look increasingly like my Aunt Mildred. Just kidding. My hair is a couple feet longer, and we’ve both lost over 20 pounds. We have new hobbies. We have new priorities. We are doppelgangers of the people we were when we first met 15 years ago. I am no longer Hippie Sara, he is no longer Salesman Tim. I don’t like my eggs the same way any more. But he adapts to that and makes them the way I like them now, rather than trying to get me to eat them the same way I always have. I was a barista, he was a chef. Then he was a roast master and I was a Wholesale Manager. Then we were students together on an island in Indonesia and emerged as dive instructors!
While living in Borneo, it seemed that everything about our daily life was different. Instead of making people’s day better through a delicious latte and warm smile, I was giving people a life skill and shaping them into responsible, safe divers. Instead of parking on the side of Bond Street and walking through Drake Park at 1:00 in the afternoon to a coffeehouse, I was suddenly getting up at 6am and catching a boat off a dock in Borneo to commute into a tiny island. I no longer passed people walking their dogs by the river, I passed Muslim women covered from head to toe and men with baskets of fresh fish. My work attire changed from a black shirt and khaki skirt to a swim suit and fins. Life could not be more different than it was. But I was living that reality with my best friend, so while reality changed, important connections remained strong and unaltered.
My mother always used to say that true love was not in looking at each other, but looking forward in the same direction. I guess she was right. This grand dream we have built wouldn't work with just anyone. I have learned that if a relationship is to last, it's important to want the same things, to have the same dreams, the same future together. Our reality has completely shifted but our love has not. We have both grown so much and our priorities have changed but the relationship is still a priority. I’ve always had the unconditional love within me, but rarely been this fortunate to have it in a relationship too.
Tim and I have always communicated clearly so we understand where the other is at internally, and that way, growth never comes as a surprise. We’ve now gone from friends and surf partners to travel buddies. We learned to Stand Up Paddleboard together on wobbly legs, and then mastered the sport and built and designed our own 10 foot boards. We've been paddle buddies, flying partners, dive buddies, fellow students, supportive co-instructors, business partners and life partners.
So while you can’t always take your friends with you, if you are really lucky, you can take your partner with you. Happy five years, baby.
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