Sometime around 10 years ago, I started playing Ultimate frisbee with a group of people in Derby, KS. At the time, I was so excited to simply have an outlet to play sports with other people. I hadn’t really been allowed to play organized sports, so even though I had never played Ulitmate before, any sort of competitive sports sounded like a blast to me.

Fast-forward through the years, this became one of the main outlets of my friendships with others. Even though it started as a place to play sports, it became a place where I was able to hang out with people that I loved and enjoyed spending time with.

At the time, it was hard to imagine not having it. It was weird to imagine not having the friends that I had made from playing. I was one of the youngest players out there for the first 5 or so years I played, so it was so fun for me to spend time with people who were older than me in different life stages.

Fast forward to the present day. Not only do I no longer play Ultimate at this park on Sunday afternoons (like I thought I would for the rest of my life), but I can count on one hand the people who were there the first week I played and still play there today.

Several of these people, I thought we would be friends for life. Though maybe it was less thinking we would be friends the rest of our life and more a lack of thinking at all about it. I was living in the moment and didn’t think about the fact that one of those weeks may have been the last time I played with some of those people.

This kind of come and go friendship was probably more common for many of my friends who may have changed schools or cities growing up, but for me, it was not something I was very used to. I lived in the same city, same house, my whole life. I wasn’t used to people leaving my life completely. The closeness of the friendship may have changed over time, but it never seemed like they completely went away.

Now, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve been amazed out how quickly a friendship can blossom and even more amazed at how quickly it can fade. I’ve written before on how these quick friendships are never the “old friendships” you build when you’re younger. As in, the friendships you make in a month or even a week can feel almost as close as some of your friends you’ve known forever, but you can’t share enough life in that amount of time to get to know them like someone who knew them when they were younger.

Back 4 or 5 months ago, I was interested in playing Spikeball and found a group playing at a park about 20 minutes north of Austin. We ended up playing and hanging out together for over 7 hours. By the end, we were all making jokes, being silly, and making fun of each other. We had become great friends…I haven’t talked to any of the people I played with since then.

It was a great day, but the intersections of our life didn’t make sense to continue, so I didn’t continue to see them.

The come and go of relationships is a necessary evil in life. People/locations/job/life changes and in the world we live in today, it’s all but impossible to keep every friendship you’ve ever made.

But oh so sweet the ones that do continue thorough years and years of life changes. I’m grateful for the people who have continued in my life for many years and I hope our lives continue to intersect even as our life stages change.