Friendships Missed

Well, we did it again! We let another entire year pass before we were able to commit to a date with some wonderful, old friends from days gone by. Old as in, yes, we were together to celebrate my husbands' advanced age (jk Joe!)...and old in that the older we get the older the friendships become. This is a wonderful thing. While these friendships are formed because we trudged to class together and commiserated about our college professors, or shared a cubicle at our first job, these friendships last because we see something special in our friends and want them in our lives. Sometimes other things prevent us from keeping the lines of communication constant and the get togethers frequent. Sometimes it's distance, sometimes it's work, sometimes it's children and their hectic little lives. But one thing's for sure, time seems to have stood still when we get together...finally...after that long year of trying and waiting! It's so familiar, so comfortable and so wonderful we ask ourselves, how do we let this happen? How do we manage to let the year grow into 2, 3, 5...more? How does a dear, wonderful friend leave this world and our lives before we find the time? How do we even stand ourselves for allowing this to happen? We don't intend for it to happen, but it can...and it does. I know we all are guilty of it. But before we know it we're old. Yes, here we are. Not really THAT old, but certainly feeling it when we sit together over dinner and multiple glasses of wine and look at the children who in those 365 days can change so dramatically. We wonder where the time goes. And when we reminisce together and laugh until we cry, we wonder where the time goes? And then we loose one of us far too soon and we regret the time we lost. This is the kick in the pants I know I needed to get me to think quick and realize that I can not let this happen again. It prompted me to call one of my dearest (she'd kill me if I said oldest!) friends, a confidante in thought and deed...whom I haven't seen in 2 1/2 yrs! I invite her to join us on our vacation for a while because I just can't let another day go by. Why don't you pick up the phone today, or if you can't do that, make yourself a short to-do list of people that you miss and one by one be with them. A quick lunch, a cup of coffee and a chat, or if you can a long weekend together. What more joy is there than living, loving and laughing! Thanks for reading! Miriam