This morning as I was getting around, I thought about an old friend. Well, old friend probably isn’t quite right- he was a childhood friend I was close to for probably two years. I imagine at the time, I was one of his friends, but I think for me, he was one of my only friends. I don’t have a broad history of deep relationships.

At one point several years ago, under the same exercise, I had found him after a short search on Facebook, and did the friending thing. He accepted it, and I got to do the obligatory scrolling through his posts. I was glad to reconnect with him, but we didn’t really have more than one or two cursory conversations. He was pretty post averse, and you fall back into life when you are busy, and he was pretty busy.

This morning I wondered if we were still friends on Facebook, and the inevitable was there- I was trimmed at some point.

It happens. Friendships have their limits.

He’s fine and well. After graduating from the University of Texas, he did some high level stuff here and there, and being brilliant as he was back when we were kids, he’s found his place in academia. He’s a program chair for civil and civic studies in a big university back East, and from his lean profile offerings, he keeps a small circle of Facebook friends. His face is pretty much the same now as it was when were young- just sharpened by age. The years have been good to him.

He was my best friend for two long years when I was in elementary school. I used to spend a lot of time at his house, riding bikes in the neighborhood, playing games, helping him with projects. He was my first away-from-my-street friend.

I remember when I learned we were moving across the city to a new space and a new situation, I cried a lot. I cried mostly because I was losing my best friend.

I don’t know. I’m pretty sure he didn’t feel quite the same about me.

I thought I tried to stay connected to him as best as a 10 year-old could, living across town. We got together once or twice after that, but I was still the one hoping to hang on to him. Mid school came, and the calls ended. High school came, and roads diverged.

Life is short.

It’s always a mystery as to why some people in my life that I’ve cared about deeply didn’t reciprocate. It happens to all of us. We love folks, and they don’t see us. Or can’t.

And time moves on, and once the dynamic duo, you become strangers.

And I wonder what love says to do about that. After all, you can’t have everyone as your best buddy.

I’ve had probably 4 or 5 super buddies in my life. Paul. Glenn. Chris. Rob. My brother. Probably Brad for a while.

But I’m just not too good on keeping super buddies.

I am deeply honored that Chris is still a pretty close fried to me- as close as I let him be. He’s been my best, most present friend since high school. We don’t talk much about it or marvel at it, but we’ve been friends for nearly three decades. Thirty years. He has been a lifer, and will undoubtedly remain so, just because history and momentum suggest it.

I still ping Rob once and a while, although our seminary years are long behind us, and he is a relatively new husband and dad and professor in Dubuque, Iowa.

I am honored my brother still thinks of me as a best friend, although I’m not sure I’m that great of a friend to him (although I want to be, and I want to change that headed down the back hill of our lives).

The truth is, I’m just not very good at friendships. Time passed and friendship failures have made me suspect and cold. I don’t trust well. I always feel overdrawn in relationships, and underfunded. And I grieve losses too easily.

But I still love my closest friends pretty strongly, though I may fail to show it very often. I love those who have helped make me, and who shared time, space, and minds with me, even if I didn’t wow them. And I miss the fact I can’t connect with them about the good times I shared with them, and think that they would feel the same way about me.

I guess I’m not that 10 year-old any more.

But I still miss that 10 year-old best friend at times.

I remember when I was there for the maiden launch of the large balsa wood tow-string glider he and his dad had worked on heartily for a few months, and the elastic band didn’t release, and the plane dove irredeemably into the ground.

I remember our folks taking and leaving us at the skating rink downtown one Saturday night, and somehow, just after getting his skates on and we were bulleting onto the floor, his feet crossed and he went down hard, and all activities stopped and people stared, and then the ambulance came to take him to deal with a broken leg.

I remember cheese sandwiches and throwing rocks, and people calling him Tall Paul, and him winning awards a lot.

And I remember moving, and realizing I had lost my best friend, and crying off and on for a month.

Best friends happen. And to have one for a season or for a lifetime, what a gift they always are in retrospect.

Well, best friends- thank you each for being super buddies. You all certainly made a big impact in my life, and I am grateful for you hanging out with a goof like me.