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How do I deal with my best friends moving away and leaving me behind?
I'm 23 and my best friends are 24 and 27. Just in the last month both of them announced they're moving out of state.
I can't help, but feel like I'm being left behind. They both have a significant other they're moving with and one has a baby. I feel like they're both taking the easy way out and it makes me mad...and admittedly a little jealous.
The one is leaving with her SO because she's tired of working and he said she could be a stay at home mom if she leaves with him (he's joining the military). The crazy part is she just saw him for the first time in a year because they had been broken up, but now that he's offering her that she wants to get back together with him.
The other got her degree, but can't find any work in it so she's just going out of state to get a different degree and start over in a big city. I feel like it's a bad idea because neither her or her S.O. have a job and they're taking out tons of loans to cover everything until they can find jobs.
Meanwhile I'm working full time and just recently got a new job that's paying better money than I've ever made. I'm also trying to finish my degree, but working means more to me right now. I'm dating around a bit, but nothing serious because I have a lot on my plate and I find that adding a guy just adds unnecessary drama.
When they both leave though I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. They're really the only two friends I have and I know once they move they're going to be moving on with their life and making new friends. I know the easy answer is make more friends, but that's easier said than done, especially when I work a lot and when those two friends have known me my whole life. I know there's also the possibility of visiting them, but realistically that probably won't happen because I don't get a lot of time off and I'm skittish about planes.
How do I cope with losing two of my closest friends and very possibly never seeing them again?
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Want to answer more questions in the Relationships category?
Maybe give some free advice about: Friendship?
Well, first is to realize that your emotions, and how you feel are going to be affected by how you think. That is why when we are watching a sad movie with people just acting the parts and its not real, our thoughts are on the injustice or the loss of someone and we cry. We know its not real but yet we get sad. That may not be the best analogy but how you think is affecting how you are feeling.
I am not saying we should try to not miss someone who leaves but we can't let it be the defining factor in what our life is going to be like from now on. A married person who loses their mate to death is of course going to mourn them terribly and without finding somewhere to put all the attention and care they gave their spouse and put it into something else or they may find they no longer can see a purpose to live and go on.
People come into our life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. You don't get to decide which ones get to stay with you a lifetime. Life is about change, never staying in the same spot for long, Either we're learning more, changing jobs, changing homes, ending some relationships and starting new ones, marriage, divorce, having kids, adopting, volunteer work, etc.... There is so much that brings change into our lives. You may not like decisions or the reasons for decisions your two friends are making but it is their lives, not an extension of your life. So they have to make the best decisions they can whether you internally agree or not.
In your case, it doesn't sound like you had much extra time to spend with them considering your schedule and all that is on your plate. So it wouldn't help to tell you to find activities to pour your time into. Its even better if not finding something like a club or new hobby but if you take time to do something that helps makes some one elses life more enriched in some way. Hubby and I volunteer one day a week at a church putting out community dinners for free. I have heard people who go into schools saying they'd like to be reading buddies with children and once they've screened you, you can go into the class and have the teacher show you where she needs you. I recently saw a clip of older men and women, retired who have nothing else to do with their time and they either give love and attention to local puppies/kittens at a shelter or they give the same to premies born in the hospital. These are not advertised volunteer positions, but sometimes, in volunteering our time, we'll find new direction in our life or new friends made.
You need to stop thinking of this as your friends abandoning you and being left behind. You also need to stop thinking that your friends should never have made decisions for their life which take them away from you. Now if two people were married and one said, you stay here since you have obligations here but I am going to move to another state to take that job offer. See ya.
That would be a situation of being abandoned and left behind and worse, of two people who are supposed to be a unit/coupe that makes all decisions together, taking all into account and making the best decision that both of them can abide by. Yes, there is such a situation. but thats a committed/married couple. Same for same sex couples but you didnt mention being lesbian and the others seem to have men in their lives, so what might apply to a married couple doesn't apply here to a best friend. My best friend moved to another state when she married. Once we were apart, it was hard at first, the first year maybe. But then changes came into my life, new job new relationship and before I knew it, married and having kids like my friend. Once apart, we lost contact for a while and then she found me on facebook. Since then, she'd visited a couple times and I realized that we learned, we grew and no longer had the same things in common any more, we both come from vastly different worlds now. As a result, we don't talk much anymore as there is nothing she believes and devotes her time and energy to that resemble mine. If you can't see that as being possible, heres a few of my examples, My religious beliefs now are vastly different than hers, political views different, our goals for retirement really different, different hobbies, in fact there is nothing that I am currently passionate about that she even gets, or things she is passionate about that I experiences so long ago it like going back to grade school to talk about. Obviously, we didn't both change and grow in all areas at the same rate or even about the same things. We keep in touch but its nothing like our childhood and teen years together. I can treasure that memory but thats about it. I have different friends now, people who are much closer to the same point I am at in life so we can relate together much better.
Don't be jealous that they seem to be moving on in life. You might not be making a move away from where you live, but you are doing the level headed thing, something that an adult has to do, focus on and finish school. And it is a choice to not get into a relationship now as well. All this is no less important than what they are doing.
Once you change your line of thinking to this being part of change that is inevitable in life, friends moving away, then your emotions will follow suit and calm down.
If you met a guy tomorrow who is also focusing on school but says he wants to invest time in a relationship with you once you both are done with school and moving you with him back to his state where his friends and family are and his family is well to do, and you both are in love. If your two friends were still in town hanging around only to be with you and not moving on with their lives....would you say no to your special guy and move to another state and stay in town to live your life married (so to speak) to your two best friends, none of you ever marrying a guy, or having kids, could you be happy with that? Or would you choose to move on to your new life because you're in love, school is behind you, there'll be a place to live with family til you get jobs and place of your own in his home state? Would you worry about your friends hating you for choosing to move on with your life and follow what seems right, even though you may be leaving your friends, own parents and siblings behind to follow your husband or husband to be? Would you think it even fair of them to want you to stay and break up with your love, just to be with them in the same place for the rest of your life? \
I know, extremely blunt but picturing roles switched and in the other persons shoes, can also help you gain perspective to see that this is a part of life. LIfe is all about change.
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