I think the nature of many of my friendships is that they are transitory. So far in my life I have had very few, if any, long term continuous friendships.
Indeed, I remember talking to a woman who I thought would be my best friend for a significantly longer time than she was about another bird who I wished to develop a friendship with.
For weeks I spoke of this other woman, a potential second best friend, and once, while I was singing her praises, my best friend asked me if there was ever a time when I spoke of her in this way, and as I stopped and considered her question, I remembered all the times, prior to and in the early stages of our friendship, that I would sit in the office where I worked and tell my colleagues about her.
I remembered sitting with a friend of mine over a pint and telling him how I hoped to see her later that night, and I remember her coming into the venue where I worked and her embracing me, and, once she had gone upstairs, telling all my friends that she would be my best friend very soon.
After I considered this, I nodded, and simply replied 'yes', and I suppose it was in this moment I realised that there might be a time limit on our friendship. Because, it was in this moment that I realised that our friendship, no matter how intense or special it may have felt at the time, followed a pattern, and that I had had many such friendships prior to her and that I would have many more after.
But it wasn't just her that I lost when we stopped being friends, it was all that she gave me, it was all the people she introduced me to, and all the things we used to do together.
Recently my newest friend mentioned that, come mid September, and certainly by early October, once I return to my usual humble abode, our friendship will come to an end.
On the one hand, you might expect me to be sad, and I suppose in a sense I am, but actually the fact our friendship will come to an end is, I think, what makes our friendship so exciting. It will never grow old, it will forever be new, and it will be immortalised in a particular moment in time, and so, when I look back on these friendships in a year's time, or perhaps even in ten year's time, I will remember them fondly.
And although, in just a month and a half's time, I might never see her, or my other new friends again, there are so many more beautiful, exciting, and interesting people out there to experience, and I am significantly more thankful for that than I am sad that my current friendships are slowly coming to their natural ends.