Thoughts about Friends

Make new friends, but keep the old
One is silver and the other is gold.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

So often these little sayings are bandied about to children. Do we grow up believing them? Why, then, is everyone so surprised when someone acts nice and treats another with respect and care?

As children approach adulthood, we hear other phrases:

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Blood runs thicker than water.

It is always the people closest, whether family or friends, who feel the fallout when someone vanishes from daily life, whether it is from a move to a new home or a death. While we are told as youngsters to cherish those close to us, we are also split apart from them as we get older.

It seems simpler in books. If you don't like the sister, write her out. The best friend has become too much of a frenemy, so you write her into a new romance to leave the protagonist bereft of even the competitive spirit of their relationship. The romantic interest becomes boring, and you pen in another hobby like skydiving.

Yet it leaves me wondering about the people left behind. If my character moves, she knows what she's leaving behind and she faces what comes next. If her friend moves, she thinks she'll keep in touch through Herculean efforts. In real life, each of them finds a new daily norm and settles into a routine with people who are local. Give the moved girl a marriage in a bit of time (with the traditional name change) and she'll be all but unfindable.

My brain is centered today on the concept of trying to find the way back home for a protagonist who left at a young age. She might be recognizable to some of the people who knew her well, but perhaps not. Her motivation isn't the most innocent, and she's going to encounter resistance before she finishes her plan.

Yet what would it take to make someone unrecognizable? How many years before the memory has faded from those closest to her? How much can a name change before they assume she is someone else? Think of people who moved away from your past, or the people you left if you were the one who moved: even with social media we can't always find the people who meant something to us.

I suppose what I'm wondering today is, what does it take to completely disappear?

One last thought: All is fair in love and war.