How to Love Someone Through Every Change
Think about the friend you’ve known the longest. Now think about how much you’ve both changed since then. That gap is the ticket to a friendship that lasts.
I’ve seen a lot of friendships fall apart not because someone did something wrong, but because someone changed. Got a new job. Moved. Started therapy. Found a new hobby. Came out the other side of something hard looking a little different than before, and the people around them couldn’t figure out what to do with a version of their friend they didn’t recognize. So instead of getting curious, they got weird about it. (That’s not losing a friend. That’s just losing a grip on someone you were never actually letting be a full person.)
The friendships that last are not the ones that stay the same. They’re the ones that make room for the new.
Making room sounds like a simple concept. It isn’t. It means checking your expectations and ego at the door. It means not needing someone to stay exactly who they are right now so that you can feel comfortable with who you are. It means asking questions instead of projecting. It means celebrating when someone evolves, even when it’s uncomfortable, even when it makes you feel like you’re getting left behind, even when their growth subtly points a finger at the places you haven’t moved yet.
Here’s what we talk about enough. When you create space for someone to be fully themselves, they do the same for you. It’s one of the best trades in existence. You stop performing friendship and you start actually being in it. You stop showing up as the version of yourself that everyone expects and you start showing up as whoever you are right now. This is when you can really know someone. Not the curated, comfortable version of them. The real one. The one who is figuring things out in real time, just like you.
You can only love someone through every change if you make room for every part of them.
Because you know who they actually are. You’ve seen the full picture, not just the highlight reel.
I have a friend I’ve known since I was 18. We were college roommates. She is not the same woman she was then. Neither am I. The person I met and the person I know now are completely different, and I’ve had the privilege of watching everything in between.
I have a friend I’ve known since I was 7. She is now a mother, a wife, a business owner. She is not the same 7-year-old girl I grew up with. Not even close. And that is the whole point.
The friendships I value most are with women I get to know in every phase. The marriage. The motherhood. The confidence that finally kicks in. The reinvention nobody saw coming. The heartbreak that changes how someone moves through the world. The season where they lose themselves, and the one where I get to watch them find whoever comes next. We love each other through the space and the silence. Some years we talk every day. Some years life gets loud. The friendship doesn’t disappear. It just breathes differently.
This phase of life, right before the next big chapter, is a privilege if you let it be. You start to see clearly. You find out which friendships have room to grow and which ones only had room for who you used to be. You find out what kind of friend is for you, what kind of friend isn’t, and the kind of friend you want to be.
♡ Syd