Friendship

Friendship is often taken for granted. When you have it, you ignore it. You assume it will always be there. You don't nurture it.

And then, one day, it's gone.

Two years ago, I had to very good, very close friends. I considered them family. They were, and are, very important to me. But two years ago, the writing group we'd been in together for over ten years was shut down. And slowly, we drifted apart. I lived close to one, and with a little effort we could have kept in touch. Phone calls, getting together, IMing...

But I was working full time, and going to school full time. I was, and am, sensitive to those little clues that indicate that someone's backing away from me. Especially with this one friend. I had observed for myself how she distanced herself from someone else who was trying too hard to be friends with her.

I assumed that she was doing the same thing with me. It started with IM conversations that elicited monosyllable responses. She never suggested getting together; it was always my initiation. In my last month in California, she made no effort to get together with me. That hurt. Once I moved, God knew when we'd actually be able to see each other again. If I mattered to her, wouldn't she have at least suggested dinner sometime in the week before I left?

She didn't work. She wasn't in school. She didn't contact me.

I interpretted this as her wish to sever the friendship. It hurt, a lot, to realize this. I still considered her one of my best and closest friends. And because I stilled cared - and I'm essentially a coward - I didn't confront her and demand to know if my assumption was right.

With the other friend, she lives a distance away. I can't honestly say she drifted away as much as I let her go. She was never one to start an IM conversation. If I didn't start the conversation, then we wouldn't have one. But she and our other friends are very close, and I suppose I thought of them as a pair. Lose one, lose the other.

But over the past year, I've been thinking a lot. Did I let go too easily? Did protecting myself cost me a friendship - two friendships - that were and are important to me? Should I have pushed?

And I started thinking about other frienships that had faded over the years. Some with cause. Some just because life moved on, priorities and circumstances changed.

Are those reasons enough to let something as precious as friendship go, without even trying to keep it?

True friendship is rare. It should be protected and nurtured. It should be the prize rose in the flower garden, not the weed out in the empty field.

I decided to make an effort. I wrote a letter. A form letter, yes, because it made me feel safer. I emailed it to those old friends that I didn't have a home address for. I'll mail it to those that I do have a home address for.

And hopefully, my friendships will blossom again.