...a reason, a season, or a lifetime...

I have had the opportunity recently to be in touch with several old friends that I have not had much contact with lately, for one reason or another. I have lived in several states through my adult years and have kept up with friends met along the way, and with childhood and college friends, too. When I married Wonderful Guy, he stared at my Christmas card list and asked 'who are these people?' An old Sunday school teacher, folks from Kentucky, good friends from college, people I knew from Missouri, a childhood friend from Kansas...The dee-vorce gave a chance to grow very close with a few more.

Some I have only kept up with by Christmas cards/letters some years, but opportunities have presented themselves to stay in closer touch sometimes. Some have just drifted away, and that is the way of some friendships. A very few were riven completely by the dee-vorce. I have heard that people enter our lives 'for a reason, for a season, or for a lifetime.' I like that view. It provides me the choice of a lesson from these relationships.

Sometimes events provide the impetus to renew friendships. One Saturday, when Wonderful Guy and I stopped to get a donut before hiking, my oldest friend in the world (besides Dearest Sister) parked next to us! Sometimes it takes effort. This year I googled the name of a college friend, and had to email a couple times before I made it through her university's spam filters. Sometimes it means breaking through my personal fears of making of phone call and wondering if they want to reconnect. Sometimes I have to let them go.

Reconnecting has let me make amends where needed. There is a good chance this month that I will get to talk to a college friend that lives too close by for us to not have been in closer contact. I was such a shallow and vacuous boy-chaser, with a great deal of potential, but with no earthly direction except where the males were back then. I just shake my head at my younger self...anyway...I hope to be able to share with her on a healthy level now, and perhaps apologize for some of my bumbles of the past.

Some old friends leave me in awe, like my oldest friend in the world who holds me in such high regard that she considers me like a sister. Do I deserve it? I am not sure, but I am highly complimented. I had the chance to say hello to her elderly mother not long ago, probably 30 years since I last saw her. She recognized me right off, and my friend and I had to assured her that we weren't going to ask to spend the night!

Some aren't around anymore. I lost one two years ago last Christmas to alcoholism. I knew she was struggling, and felt moved to call her one night about 6-8 weeks before she went. I am so glad I listened to my intuition on that one.

I value those I have had the privelege to know through my life, and I appreciate the lessons I have to learn from each person. I am going to try follow through on those nudges my intuition gives me to get in contact, to look people up this year. And when it isn't right, to let it go.