I would not say as I got older I settled for friendship, quite the opposite actually, I rose to it. It has challenged me and pushed me to grow in ways I never thought possible. It causes me to create values for myself and to stand for what I believe in. It has made me vulnerable because I have been fortunate enough to meet people who will accept nothing less.

It is one thing to be pushed by those in your family, but another thing entirely to be pushed by friends. These are the people you have chosen as your second home and as you get older you do look for a home away from home. It is because of this, you pay more attention to what you want in a friend. You begin to separate the good from the bad, the ones who will benefit you from the ones who can ultimately ruin you.

As I have gone through countless friendships, some have stood the test of time, others have fallen out or faded, while some disappeared just as quickly as they came. Whatever the reason, each end makes me pause and assess, as it should.

I suppose that is what happens as we age. What we want from a relationship changes. What we want grows; it becomes its own wild thing that we try to contain by leashing ourselves to the familiar. Do not get me wrong, it is nice to have a person in this world who is with you through what seems like the impossible. Not someone to coddle, or fix every problem, or even to listen to every little complaint. Just someone to keep you on the earth when you feel like you are slipping.

I look at my best friend and wonder if what I need from a friendship really has changed. I know that it has. Gone are the days that I just want someone to sit with at lunch as a child; in fact, I am completely fine eating alone. Gone is this strong desire to complain about my parents’ “unfair” parenting as an adolescent, which I see now as a necessary evil. Even more so, the strong, intense yearn I felt in high school for a sister I never had is now dulled and, for the most part, absent.

When my best friend broke up with a girl she loved the summer after our senior year of high school, she was devastated and I remember bringing her favorite food over. I remember we watched movies until she fell asleep because that is what we do together now. And as the TV glowed in the dark, my eyes spaced out over the screen and I began to wonder, when did we stop getting to know each other? When did we begin treating the other like something permanent?

I am learning this is a rut that friendships can hit. It is a pause, a sort of hiccup, along the road. It does not mean it is over, but it does mean you both are growing. It is at this stage that I learn when two people are changing in different ways, it does not mean you always have to part ways. All it means is you adjust. Maybe you are not joined at the hip, maybe you cannot read their mind all the time like you used to. What you each get from the relationship changes. Instead of the daily vent-machine, your best friend becomes something else. She becomes your rock you call because you know that no matter how much time or distance, she will answer.

That is why, on the way home, I tell her about the time in elementary school when I started a vegetarian club because I wanted to fit it. We go on like that until the Austin highway turns into the Houston skyline; exchanging stories and adding detail we might have left out all those years before. We jam to Taylor Swift and other throwbacks on the radio and it is here that I know we have a chance to begin again.