Friends

Have you ever lost touch with a friend? I don’t mean someone that you knew in school or a casual acquaintance, but a real friend? Some may say that if the person was a real friend, we wouldn’t have lost touch. I don’t think that is true.

I have three friends in my life that I miss, friends that I simply grew apart from. There was no fight, no falling out, nothing that I can pinpoint as “this is what happened between us.” First is a dear friend who I’ve known since the day I was born…I think. We have always been rather close, but due to his being on crutches or in a wheelchair most of his life, we didn’t really “hang out” together much. We try to keep in touch, but it doesn’t always work out that way. I try to arrange at least one day a year where I spend the whole day in Butler, and I try to spend a few hours with him. Again, that doesn’t always work out, either.

The second is a friend from school - all the way back to elementary school. He and I were constant companions. Even when I wasn’t the easiest person to be around, he was always there in some way. All the way up through college and slightly beyond, we were almost always together. Then it happened. We went out together less often. The phone rang less often. I moved to Ohio. Despite the fact that I keep trying through email to hook up with him, it just never seems to happen. Again, when I arrange my day trips to Butler, I try to let him know, but he very rarely has time to see me. I can’t remember the last time I even saw him.

The third is the first friend I made when I moved to Ohio (other than people I knew through skating). We met at work, and we found out that we had much in common. I even asked her to be in my wedding, which is something I would NEVER have done if I hadn’t thought we’d be friends for life. She lived in Salem, while I live in Boardman, which made it tough to get together after we both moved on to other employment. I tried to be there for her when her marriage was in trouble, just being around to listen if nothing else. Yet again, things happened, we called each other less often. We didn’t get together as often.

However, today I decided to stop this in its tracks. I found out that she had recently been going through a lot of crap (for lack of a better word), but I hadn’t heard anything about it until now - after it was all done and over. I told her that we needed to fix this. We are supposed to be friends - there for each other no matter what, but we both had to be interested in making the effort to keep this friendship going. Thankfully she feels the same way, and I am hoping that today marks a new start for us!

(Wow, this one got rather long, didn’t it?)