Differentiation

I wonder if we differentiate from our friends. In a child's development, as they move into and through adolescence, it's "normal" to begin to differentiate from family. The teen begins to develop their own life outside of the family home; there's rebellion about the structure, values, beliefs within the family home. The teen develops a new circle of importance, and that's the friends. In many teen lives, the friends become the most important social group; more important, even than the family.

Ultimately, the teen becomes a young adult. And in previous history (I'm not so sure this is as true anymore), the young adult would meet a life partner. You know the story - fall in love, get married, begin a family. This process would, generally speaking, allow the individual to begin to differentiate from their friends in the same way that they did with their family of origin. The mate, the new home, the children begin to hold the most important point within the circle.

For many people, however, this story is no longer true. Many people are waiting much longer to marry, or choosing not to marry at all. It leaves me wondering if this delays the process of differentiation from friends. It seems likely that those individuals (and I count myself as one of them) continue to rely on their friends in the same manner that the adolescent does. The friends remain the most important part of the circle; their opinions and engagement in activities maintains its import to the individual.

At mid-life, I am beginning to recognize this in my own self. How important my friends are. And this becomes more obvious to me as I realize that I do not hold the same position in their lives. That's not to say that I'm not important or loved - I am! This is related to my earlier question about "couple cliquedom" (my own word). The couple is an entity unto itself. There is very little space within the couple for the single friend. That's as it should be. But, being the single friend in mid-life, I've come to realize that a differentiation is necessary. I realize that it's necessary to run my own life as I see fit, with less reliance on those friends around me, and more reliance on my own self.

I've heard it said that in peri-menopause we repeat many of the emotions that we experienced in adolescence (something to look forward to girls!). Perhaps, the joyful part of this is that I get to repair the mistakes made by choosing different paths.