Like most people, I keep up with some old friends and with relatives I'm close to. I'm still in contact with a friend from elementary school days, and I Zoom every month with three of my closest college friends. Recently, I've found myself thinking about some people with whom I haven't been in touch, who have been important to me at different times of my life. Texting and emailing make communicating easier than sending a letter or even making a phone call. However, time is always limited and somehow I've found it's easier to call someone I was with the previous weekend than to call someone I hadn't spoken to in months if not a year or two.
This past year, several people I know have died. As we grow older, so do our friends and colleagues. I wondered if any of my friends had died without my having known. And so I made a list of the people with whom I wanted to reconnect. I planned to call someone on the list every three or four days.
I began contacting the people in my life, perhaps not as frequently as I'd thought I would. Alas, I discovered one had died. Another informed me that her husband had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. But others were, in relatively good health, and we enjoyed a long conversation as we caught up on each other's life.
At the end of every phone call, we said we'd stay in touch. Easy to say, but not always easy to do as once again the everyday and familiar takes over and making phone calls to old friends requires time I don't always have. But I will try.
You're so right. It's important to keep up with people. Life just gets in the way sometimes...
ReplyDeleteI know. We lead busy lives, but we have to make time somehow to keep up with old friends.
DeleteSomething I have never been good at.
ReplyDeleteYour life is so busy--writing and traveling--it's no wonder.
DeleteThis is one of those promises I make to myself that I always fail at. Thank goodness for Facebook. I may hate it somedays for all the nastiness and advertisements, but it has been a godsend where keeping tabs on friends and family is concerned.
ReplyDeleteAnnette, I feel the same way. I stay in touch with so many people through Facebook.
DeleteI do keep in touch with a few old friends, but I have to admit I've let contact with some of my siblings slide. We will all be gathering for a large family wedding, however, and I will try to catch up with them then.
ReplyDeleteA wedding is the perfect place to get together. Too often it's a funeral when we get to see relatives we haven't seen in years.
DeleteI email my children, eight close friends/cousins, and writing mentor on a weekly basis. And I have a group of FB friends.
ReplyDeleteMargaret, It's wonderful of you to keep up that way. I find emailing an easy way to contact people I haven't been in touch with for a while.
DeleteWhat a lovely idea, Marilyn. I'm going to steal it from you.
ReplyDeleteSteal away.
DeleteIn the last year, I reconnected with someone I had worked with for a number of years and socialized with frequently. Much as we enjoyed each other’s company, it was an out of sight situation.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn’t quite out of mind but we didn’t live near each other and when she left her job both of us just had a lot of other things going on so only had contact a few times usually by accident.
Last year when this occurred, we both realized that we missed the
relationship we had had and exchanged contact information.
Since then, we have been keeping in touch and getting together fairly often. Her reappearance in my life has made a big difference to me and I think she feels the same way.
As has been said life is too short and you should appreciate people while they are still around and able to know that you care about the people them.