Image by Bogdan Farca on Unsplash.
There’s an old folk song about how everything has a season, based on a Bible verse. And there’s an old square dance call that puts loneliness in perspective: “Birdie hop out and crow hop in.”
Sometimes I think our so-called loneliness epidemic comes from a failure to understand what that means.
The Linear Life
We’ve been taught to think of life as linear. You grow up with one set of parents. You go straight from high school to college to grad school. You choose one career that defines you. You live in one geographic area with one family of your own.
That may have been common at one time—maybe even in the 1950s.
But today it’s birdie hop out and crow hop in.
Most elements of life are cyclical.
You enjoy a successful career until something shifts. You change—you feel restless, bored, or pressured. Or your job disappears.
I’ve known 50-year-olds pursuing doctorates. Fifteen or twenty years later, they start again.
Even supposedly linear careers fit the pattern. I once met a doctor who started aan online business side hustle to pay the bills in medical school. The business soon generated more money than his day job of peering down sore throats. Now he works in medicine just enough to keep his license active. In another ten years, he may get bored and go back to full-time doctoring.
We talk a lot about the “loneliness epidemic.”
But what if the problem isn’t loneliness—it’s our outdated expectation that relationships are supposed to last forever?
Life isn’t linear anymore. Careers change. People move. Friendships pause and restart.
hips are even more cyclical.
Years ago, a psychologist talk show host described the first time she met her male hairdress: “long curly hair and “three earrings in each ear.” Today he’s married with children and wears suits to work.
More than one woman I know has gone from marriage with a male spouse, to living intimately with another woman, and then back again.
Even families aren’t what they used to be. Birth families were once assumed to be “for life.” You stayed close. Your siblings were ride-or-die, even if they drove you crazy.
Now? People grow apart. Values shift. Estrangements happen. Sometimes people reconnect. Sometimes they don’t.
We even see this with religion.
At my college reunions, the most devout have become atheists—and occasionally the reverse. A book by Matt Murray tells the story of his widowed father, who became a cloistered monk at 60. Single to married to monkhood.
Not linear. Cyclical.
Cycles can make us feel lonely.
Most of us do have friends—especially if we’re single by choice. Some friendships are deep. Some interactions are intense.
But friendships change.
You move. You develop new interests. So do they.
Friends disappear for years to raise children, live abroad, or go through something that’s emotionally intense. And so do you.
We see the stories online:
“My friends have moved on.”
“I just moved and can’t make friends.”
The painful truth: Friends aren’t forever.
Neither is much of anything else.
The real skill isn’t finding permanent people. It’s learning how to keep finding new ones—and how to rely on yourself in between.
Birdie hop out and crow hop in.
When someone leaves, someone else eventually appears. Not right away. Not as a replacement. But space has been created.
They won’t be the same person.
But you’re not the same either.
The Myth of the “Lost” Friend
I see a lot of posts mourning the mysterious loss of a friendship.
Sometimes there is no explanation.
Recently, I saw a heartfelt post from someone whose decades-long friend disappeared after getting married and moving away. The writer wanted to track him down and demand an explanation.
The advice columnist said: don’t. Find new friends. Move on.
I would agree 100%.
Maybe the friend was overwhelmed. Maybe he didn’t want to put energy into deep conversations. Maybe he convinced himself it was time to take a break. Maybe his new life simply doesn’t overlap with the old.
Yes, some people maintain friendships for life. Some still gather annually with college friends well into retirement.
But most of us don’t live that way anymore.
We live in cycles.
med mom may reappear when the child becomes a “leave me alone” teenager.
People move away. They move back. They change. You change. Interests realign.
Sometimes they like being “the friend from far away” instead of the next-door neighbors.
Birdie hop out.
Crow hop in.
