When Growing Up Means Growing Apart

“Because if you haven’t lost a few friends along the way, are you really growing up?”

Hey Mama,

Newsflash! Three years ago, I had a baby. 

And somewhere along the way, I lost a few friends.

There was no big fight. No dramatic falling out. No betrayal. No final conversation where we decided we were better off without each other. There was just… silence. The calls stopped. The texts stopped. The check-ins stopped. No “How are you,” or “How’s the baby?” No mid-day inappropriate jokes or memes. No “Happy Birthday.” No “Happy Mother’s Day.” No “Merry Christmas.” Not even a “Happy Juneteenth.” Nothing.

Just pure, uncomfortable, radio silence.

And if I’m being honest, that shit hurts more than a fight. At least with a fight, you know what happened and how it got to that point. However, with silence, you’re left trying to figure out: Did I do something? Did I say the wrong thing? Are they mad at me? “Did I offend them?”

When the truth is, we simply grew apart. Maybe they felt like we no longer had anything in common. Maybe they didn’t know how to relate to the version of me who now had a toddler, and with that came a bedtime routine, daycare pick-ups and drop-offs, limited free time, and a completely different set of priorities. Or, maybe I just wasn’t the same Racquel they knew from yesteryear.

And you know what? They’re right. I’m not.

But let’s be clear, I also didn’t do anything to them. I simply lived. And grew. And evolved. And became a mother. And somewhere in the middle of all that growth, I learned that you can gain an entire person, yet still lose someone else. And no one really talks about how strange that feels.

See, before motherhood, I had a very active and engaging and full social life. I knew about all the events, the restaurants, the happy hours, the parties and the underground gatherings. I was always on the go. My time was mine. My money was mine. If someone called and said, “We’re going out tonight,” my immediate response was always, “What should I wear,” followed by, “What time should I be ready?” And if I wanted to spend an entire Saturday running around the city or sit at a friend’s house talking about boys and drinking an entire box of wine until two in the morning, I could.

But then, my relationship with my lover took a very serious turn. Even before motherhood, I began noticing a subtle shift. Some invites became less frequent. Some people seemed less interested in my life. Some relationships that once felt effortless suddenly required more work.

Admittedly, I felt a way about it. But at the same time, I understood that people get busy. People get into relationships. People change. That’s life.

Then I became a mother, and suddenly everything changed. 

My schedule changed. My priorities changed. My finances changed. My body changed. My sleep changed. My identity changed. Even the way I thought about time changed. And as my life changed, some of my relationships changed with it.

Some people stayed. Some adjusted. Some made an effort to get to know this new version of me. And then, some people disappeared.

That’s the part that hurts.

I understood that I was different. I understood that motherhood had changed me. What I didn’t expect was that some people would decide they no longer wanted to know me because of it.

For a long time, I wondered if my growth had something to do with it. Maybe they preferred the old version of me. Maybe they didn’t know what to do with Racquel 2.0.

But I’m grown enough to understand that not every friendship that ends was fake. Not every person who walks away is jealous. Not everyone you lose is a loss. And not every relationship that falls apart needs a villain.

See, It’s easier to just be angry. It’s easier to chalk that lost friendship up to them not being able to handle your growth. And it’s easier to block that person and move one. The hard part, though, is coming to terms with the fact that: Sometimes people simply grow apart.

There are some friendships that belong to a particular season of your life. Sometimes two people can genuinely love each other and still end up walking in completely different directions. And sometimes the hardest part is that nobody did anything wrong. Life just changed.

But it doesn’t stop me from missing them. I miss who we were. I miss the ease, the inside jokes, the random conversations, and knowing that if something happened, I could pick up the phone. I miss having people who knew me before I became a mother, before the responsibilities, before the routines, before the exhaustion, before life became so full.

Let’s be clear, I love being a mother, but I miss my freedom. I’m in love with my man, but I miss my single life. I love Sweet Pea, more than anything in the world, but I miss who I was before she came along. And I’m grateful for the friendships that I have today, and still grieve the loss of the ones that didn’t make it to this stage in my life.

Maybe that’s part of growing up.

We spend so much of our lives thinking growing up means accomplishing things. Getting the degree. Getting the job. Getting married. Having children. Buying the house. Becoming successful. Living happily ever after. But maybe, just maybe growing up also means understanding that people can be important to your story without being present for the entire book.

I’ve also had to learn that sometimes people are simply on their own journey. And that sometimes, they are changing, too. Sometimes the relationship no longer fits either of us. And that unfortunately, yes, you both may have outgrown the relationship.

Losing people doesn’t mean I’ve lost myself. Growing doesn’t mean I’m better than the people I’ve left behind. And growing apart doesn’t mean that the friendship wasn’t meaningful.

Sometimes, growing up simply means accepting that the people who walked beside you once before, may not be the same people who walk beside you forever. And learning how to be okay with that.

With Love,

Racquel