THOUGHTS ON MAKING (and keeping!) FRIENDS IN YOUR 20's

I'm curious; who are your friends? Are they people you grew up with, who you might have met in your first year at school, or are they friends made from moving to a new city or starting a new job?

I have a few different groups of friends. There are the girls I went to school with, a close bunch of about 10 of us who know each other inside out thanks to living with each other at boarding school during the formative years of our life; there are the girls I went to uni with, who I discovered what it was like to really live with people, where you're responsible for doing your own food shopping and paying your own bills; the girls from my first proper job, who I started understanding the world of work with; there's the girl gang I've made through blogging, who encourage and nourish each others' creative pursuits and then there are the girls I work with now (all my friends are girls!), who I share the ins and outs of my day with and spend more time with than anyone else.

The other week I had a joint birthday dinner with the girls I met at my first proper job (at Grain Store, hence the relevance of the photo) and it got me thinking about the friends I've made (and kept) since I left school. Friends you make after school and university are such a different thing to those you made earlier in life; whereas your school friends are people you know so well - you know what they're thinking, exactly the thing you said that upset them last time you went out for drinks, what their sisters, mums and brothers are doing - your relationship is built on the past. It is so amazing to really know each others' lives, and it makes for a really comfortable friendship, but it also means that when you get together, a lot of your discussions might turn to things that happened in the past, people you used to know, etc.

The friendships you make later in life tend to be rooted in the present: especially with work friends, it might be more anecdotal and revolve more around discussions on the latest BuzzFeeds or what you did at the weekend. The funny thing that my dinner got me thinking about is how you keep hold of the friends you've made more recently. With the girls from my last job, we don't have the depth of history I have with my school friends, nor the daily connection that I have with my current work friends and it's interesting to see how your friendship shifts and you have to make more of an effort to be engaged in their work and their life...and with these ladies it is totally worth it!

And then there are the sweet friends I've made through blogging. What's amazing about this type of friendship is that we don't have any shared story. Our one common thread is that we all blog and I think it's that passionate, maybe entrepreneurial side, that bonds us together. When I see my blogging girls, I come away from our chats so inspired and light, like I could do anything, and I think it's precisely because you don't have a personal timeline with those friends, that your relationship can go anywhere you want it to you because you're not tied to gossip.

I'm interested to know - who are you friends with? Have you kept in touch with childhood friends or people you've worked with after you've moved on?