There’s something about planning to meet your best friend that makes you realize how much has changed, and simultaneously, how little has changed. Today, while figuring out when to meet my best friend and his fiancée who are in town, I found myself naturally suggesting that we meet first as just the three of us, and then later with our parents. It wasn’t a calculated thought – it just felt right. Because while we’re very much adults now, making our own plans and living our own lives, there’s this wonderful thing that happens when we’re all together with our parents: we get to choose to be kids again. Not because we have to, but because we want to. Because there’s joy in watching our parents beam at our achievements while still fussing over whether we’re eating enough.
When he mentioned that it would have been nice to meet multiple times but we know that both of our schedules are tight, I found myself nodding with a smile. Five years ago, that comment from any one of my friends might have sparked anxiety in me, a fear that friendships could slip away in the spaces between meetings. But today, it felt natural. Our friendship has weathered enough time and distance to know that it doesn’t depend on frequency of meetings. It depends on something much more fundamental – the knowledge that we’re there for each other, growing alongside each other, even when we’re apart.
I’ve been watching my friends step into new chapters lately. Ones becoming twos, twos becoming threes. There’s something profoundly beautiful about seeing friends embrace roles I’ve only known from the outside – partners, parents, different kinds of professionals than they started as. I love how they navigate these new waters, sometimes turning to other friends who understand these experiences better than I can. A friend who just became a parent might need advice I can’t give, but I can still be there – maybe not with solutions, but with presence, with support, with a willingness to learn about this new dimension of their life. I’ve also learned that quite frequently, people aren’t looking for solutions, just a pair of ears and a warm smile.
They say it takes a village to raise a child, and I’m starting to see how that wisdom extends to all of life’s big changes. We’re all part of each other’s support systems, showing up how we can, when we can. Sometimes that means late-night calls about career decisions, sometimes it means holding a friend’s baby while they grab a shower, sometimes it’s just sending a message saying “I saw this and thought of you.”
What’s beautiful is watching our circles expand. Every wedding I attend, every baby I meet, every partner who joins our group – they’re not dividing the existing love and attention, they’re adding their own layers to it. Our friendships aren’t getting diluted; they’re getting richer, more complex, more interesting. I’m loving how friendship evolves. How it finds new rhythms, new patterns, new ways of showing up. How some friends who I used to meet every day are now people I see twice a year but pick up exactly where we left off. How others who were once acquaintances have become central parts of my life. How we all flow in and out of each other’s important moments, creating this intricate web of care and connection.
When I see my best friend soon, I know we’ll talk about his upcoming wedding, about work, about life. We’ll share space with his fiancée, who brings her own warmth to our friendship. And later, when we’re all sitting with our parents, we’ll probably fall into old patterns – sharing glances over inside jokes, getting gently teased about childhood mishaps, being reminded to eat more. Not because we haven’t grown up, but because we have – enough to know that growing up doesn’t mean leaving behind the joy of sometimes being someone’s child.
That’s the gift of these evolving friendships – they give us space to be everything we are, everything we’re becoming, and everything we’ve been, all at once.
Tejas Rao 