Reflection on a 40th birthday weekend

The saying goes "You can't make old friends".

What sits behind this saying is the assurance that there is something qualitatively different about an old friendship versus a new one. Having just spent a weekend away with my oldest friends I'm more convinced of this than ever. But what is it that is so special about longstanding friendships?

Perhaps it's the mutual social capital you've developed that means you can be completely yourself knowing you won't be misunderstood or misread.

Perhaps it's the way they've been there as you've divulged your formative experiences with them across your lifetime and that they know how each of those has shaped you.

Or, perhaps the cause and effect are the other way around. It could it be that your friendship has stood the test of time because you have so much in common. There aren't awkward silences because there is just so much that you both enjoy and want to share whenever you are together and when you are done talking there are mutual, companionable silences.

Or might it be, that you don't have to run things past one another because you already know what the other will do. Your habits and patterns have operated alongside one another so many times that they slot together comfortably and without explanation. I'll wash and you'll dry.

Your oldest friends are also usually your greatest supporters. Having watched you through the peaks and the valleys of your life they delight in your triumphs and enter into your struggles. They are gratified to see and hear you thriving and they champion your growth.

But there is something more to be said for the long standing friendships that are with those who are also peers. To have tracked, and be tracking, through life together brings a solidarity that is a scarce treasure. To discover a universe of ideas in your twenties, wrestle with becoming parents in your thirties and then navigate your children gaining independence and your parents losing it in your forties. Well, that is something many never get to experience. A treasured gem of a lifetime.