I am going to assume, for the sake of argument, that you have friends. After all you clicked on this article, about friends (good for you!). Regardless of your stage in life, socioeconomic status, or place of birth, you have friends. But how long will we have those friends?

Some friends you keep close. Divulging your deepest, darkest secrets to, trusting that they will lock these secrets up in whatever vault they keep THEIR deepest darkest secrets in. Some friends are more distant. You keep them informed with your comings and goings and may even tell them about your latest Tinder match (go you!). Even further, we also have those "friends" who we say hello to at the grocery store and engage in casual banter with because we can't seem to remember their names for the fourth time.

All of us have these types of friends and countless more categories of "friendship" that we strategically lump those in our social circles into. This makes sense. It makes sense for us as humans to do this. As highly social animals, we could never keep our whole network as close as we may like. But this is not about any of the aforementioned categories of friends. I am talking about those close friends those who are no longer close geographically.

We all have these friends, working away on their lives in some distant (or not so distant) place. In my case, these are friends from my high school years. In your case, these may be old friends from work, school, the odd romance, or that wild frat you joined in college. These are the friends who you would divulge your deepest darkest secrets to, although you don't often get the chance to.

I recently returned from a trip with a few of these friends (you know who you are). We often have these weekend trips, usually in the same place for roughly the same amount of time. These trips are the kind that makes me feel young again. We stay up later and party harder than we would ever admit to our parents, regardless of age. You have these friends and you have been in this same scenario, probably more than once.

One thing I notice as I've grown older is the changes in these friends. Good and bad alike. During this trip I found myself thinking about how changes in life would affect the friendships which I hold so dearly. After all, people and friendships evolve given time, as all things do. I was left with more questions than I was expecting. How long can any given friendship last? Who will become absent in my life given time?

Where will we be in twenty years?

Truthfully, I have thought about this each and every time we get together, often worrying myself (as I often do) about whether things would be the same next time. After more thought and time spent with these hooligans, I came to a few rough conclusions. Friendships can last for as long as those in it are willing to support it. Friendships don't end because one person stops caring, they end because ALL parties stop caring. The people who will become absent in your life are those who were destined to become absent.

One question remains unanswered. We have absolutely no idea where we will be in twenty years. Some of us will be the heads of major corporations, some will be their employers. Some will go their own way while some will follow the crowd. Some will be single mothers, some will be single fathers. Some will be in perfect health, and some will be dead (it's true). But regardless of the fact that we cannot see into the future, we can see where we are right now. We know where our friendships are and know what we may be doing wrong. So live in the moment, appreciate what you have, stick with the positives and cut out the negatives (friends or otherwise). If you worry a little less about what you cannot control, I can promise it will all turn out just fine.