Friends

I know I’ve said before that I’m not the best friend in the world.  It’s just that I’m not good at keeping in touch. I think social sites like Facebook and Twitter (and now perhaps Google+) have made me a better friend (which, I’ll admit, I know is sad) simply because I keep up better now. As a result of sites such as those, I have lots of friends with whom I may chat everyday. And I’ve said before that I’m thankful for the ability to be social in my pajamas. But this is a post about close, dear friends … with whom I’ve laughed and cried, whispered and yelled … who are there for moments of birth and death, or pride or shame … who know my faults and like me anyway.

Over the course of my life, there’ve been friends that I hoped would be close forever and it’s my own fault that they’re not. *Like Annette in Birmingham (now North Carolina), who I talked to and ate lunch with practically every day of law school. Sadly, we’ve only spoken maybe twice since graduation in 2002. *Like Angie in Corpus Christi (now Oklahoma), with whom I spent weeks in Bible study while our husbands worked together and children played together. We spoke a few times by telephone when we first moved away in 2007. *Like Darlene in Franklin, who was the best neighbor in the world and whose boys my boy still calls his “first best friends.” We exchanged emails a few times after our move in 2008. The story with each of these dear friends has a similar thread: when life takes us different directions and inhibits more constant contact, we grow apart and only learn of each other’s lives through the internet (if active on any of the sites).

Then there are others that I may not talk to every day but that I still count as dear friends simply because they either make all the effort or understand that (and are okay with the fact that) I won’t. *Like Tina in Little Rock, who’s known me longer than anyone who’s not related to me and probably still knows me better than most of the ones who are. *Like Kim in Birmingham, with whom I share a bond far stronger than our simply that our husbands used to work together and we all like Alabama football.

And then there’s MorganMorganMorgan. I’ve only known her for a couple of years but I wish I’d known her my whole life. Though, who knows, she might’ve grown tired with me already if that were the case.  We are alike in so many ways and different in others. A key similarity is that we both confess to being bad friends.  When I left the firm where we worked together for awhile, we both acknowledged the likelihood of losing touch.  But we both said we’d try. We’ve been ex-co-workers for about 8 months now and text/email each other at least once a week. We never talk of the phone, but that’s because neither of us really cares to. We try to meet for lunch, with or without kids, every so often, and she’s the first person I think of when I read or watch something that “just gets me.” As life continues to move along, it’s so easy to fall into the routine of not reaching outside your real-life, everyday circle (to borrow a term from Google+) to feed relationships. But I must remember, relationships, to be healthy, require proper nutrition.

This post is not meant to single out others for losing touch, as I take full responsibility for it; the post is meant to pay homage to a few of the friends who I’ve been blessed to have spent time with, however long or short a time it may be.