Have you ever met an old friend after several months and quietly thought,
“they are not quite the same person anymore.”
A few days ago I met my friend Steve for coffee before he left on a long work assignment in Europe.
Steve has always been gentle, thoughtful, almost reserved. The sort of person who never needed to be the loudest voice in the room.
But this time something was different.
His eyes seemed brighter.
He spoke excitedly about hiking with strangers in the Alps, learning new languages, getting lost in unfamiliar streets.
Walking back, I found myself smiling.
Steve had changed and I was so happy for him.
Every conversation we have…
Every disappointment…
Every celebration…
Every person we love…
They leave tiny fingerprints on who we become.
Perhaps expecting our friends never to change is like expecting rivers never to flow.
The friendship isn’t tested because they changed.
It is tested because we sometimes continue relating to the person they used to be.
The anthropologist Margaret Mead once observed, what makes humans extraordinary isn’t simply intelligence.
It’s our remarkable ability to adapt to one another.
Perhaps that’s true of friendships too.
Maybe the healthiest friendships are not the ones where nobody changes…
They’re the ones where both people keep updating the picture they carry of each other.
Almost as if every few years they quietly ask,
“Tell me who you’ve become lately.”
And maybe that’s one of the purest forms of affection.
Not saying,
“I miss the old you.”
But saying,
“I’m excited to meet this new version of you.”
Because nothing makes another human feel more seen than realizing someone has noticed their growth.
Friendship isn’t preserved by holding on to yesterday. It survives because we keep making space for tomorrow.
One question before I leave…
Who else has become a better version of themselves while you’ve known them, and have you ever told them you’ve noticed? Has anybody remained absolutely the same?
Until tomorrow,
Bob