My corner of the forest

As a close friend packed up her life with visions of a European adventure dancing in her head, I sat amidst the boxes of memories and wondered: now what? While she and I had only met one year earlier, we had seen each other through too much for a simple hug and goodbye to cut it. Under her watchful eye, I had survived two apartments, three relationships, five jobs, two cities, three months of feeling absolutely lost, and more goodbyes than I'm willing to admit.

I found a lot of strength in our friendship during difficult times but as we taped up the last of her boxes, I realized her departure was a wake-up call. In 12 months we had fast-forwarded through the kind of friendship that takes years to grow. Watching as she stood over the pile of boxes with a smile to mask the looming uncertainty, my eyes were opened to the toll that life places on our most important relationships. In that moment I understood that as we grow and follow our own dreams, friendships are no longer as effortless as they once were.

From Osh Kosh to honour roll

As young children, starting out was easy. Parents screened and facilitated friendships, essentially doing the work for us. In Kindergarten, for no reason other than geography, I became friends with the boys and girls in my corner of suburban heaven - even the older first-grader who so kindly threw my coveted Fraggles backpack down the snowy hill on a daily basis. Our neighbourhoods and classes forged strong bonds out of thin air as we learned, played, and grew together. For almost 16 years of our lives, school was the backbone of our relationships.

When the emotional climax of high school graduation finally came, the behind-the-scenes strength of our friendships was taken away. All of a sudden making plans and keeping in touch was more difficult. Of course there were new and lost relationships over the course of our public schooling. Long before graduation, for example, the boy who ruined my life on a daily basis with the hijack of my schoolbag took up smoking and the social circles that came with it. These, of course, did not mesh well with my place in the school band and Students' Council.

Despite the shiver that the cruel high school politics sends down my spine, walking across that stage and taking the diploma in my hands somehow meant surrendering to a whole new set of unforgiving challenges. Some friendships fell to the hurdle of keeping in touch from different provinces, while others didn't even survive separate universities in the same city, or even different fields of study. This was the first taste of the real world, showing us that nothing would ever be as easy as when we all waited for the bus in Osh Kosh overalls.

New game, new rules

In the past year, I have fallen out of touch with many friends for a variety of reasons. The girl with whom I created a Pound Puppy adoption centre now studies in Spain, another who fueled my espionage phase is graduating in Vancouver, and my backpack-stealing nemesis -if there is any justice in the world- is living far away, unknowingly working toward the day that he becomes my undervalued personal assistant. More importantly, many of these people are living well within reach, but simply don't appear in my life as often as I would like. No emotional blowouts, no undeniable differences in opinions, nothing drastic; we simply don't make the effort. No one person is to blame, nor is any one person completely off the hook.

The past year has been hard for everyone: break-ups, the loss of parents, the strain of living with friends, the more trying experience of moving out after living with friends, and both national and international relocations. Of all our years, this should have been the one for us to band together. But when times get tough it's easier to just worry about yourself, isn't it? In my case, I know that I wouldn't have made it through the past year as unscathed as I am without the support of the woman who stood smiling at me in her bare bachelor apartment, as if to say: you'll be fine.

Dreams of white-picket fences

Like a catch and release program, we learned and grew through our fast and furious friendship and now the time had come to snap back into reality, bringing with us new perceptions and knowledge. In my case, this meant promising to rekindle the invaluable friendships in my life before another graduation shakes them even further apart. Be it naiveté or a tragic optimism, I would like to believe that throughout the weddings, funerals, births and reunions ahead of us all, I will be able to see some of the alumni of my life at my side. Perhaps even the children of my oldest friends will be able to save my own from the backpack bullies of their neighbourhood.

Departures and awakenings

When the truck was loaded, we cleaned the packing carnage of three monstrous garbage bags, empty rolls formerly carrying heavy duty tape, beaten up cardboard boxes and the little trinkets that didn't merit a stay in storage. We both knew that we may never again see each other face to face but I hope this, my promise, will prove contagious: If my friends, regardless of location, career, field of study or family life, make the effort to keep our relationships alive, no ocean or time difference can keep us apart. She had me flick off the lights in her apartment for the last time; she couldn't bear to do it. She was never one for goodbyes, and with my new oath well underway, now I can proudly say: neither am I.

"You can't stay in your corner of the forest, waiting for others to come to you; you have to go to them sometimes." Winnie the Pooh