To Yesterday’s Friend, Can we Try Again?

 

We meet and our hearts leap at the prospect of a new and exciting friendship. We mark our calendars with important dates (e.g., Girls Night Out). We plan outings with the kids at family-friendly coffee shops and neighborhood parks as well as talk on the phone daily. Shoot, we even friend eachother on Facebook (which, as we all know, is the official marker of a solid friendship)!

Excitement grows as we get to know more about one another. Our lives intersect and it’s okay that we aren’t perfect because we know we can be real with eachother. We feel whole, like we have found the missing piece of the friendship puzzle that our hearts were designed to hold.

We foolishly think that things will always be this way.

But, life happens. Babies get sick and we have to cancel our lunch dates. Work commitments pile up and our fun weekend escapades get put on the back burner. Running the kids around from doctor’s appointments to school activities leaves us tired and desperate for more Zzz’s and less interaction with the human race. (Even the really important people that make our souls come alive.)

Now it’s been six months since we hung out and I can’t even remember what our last conversation was about. Was it on the phone? Did we actually meet in person and catch up on eachother’s lives? NO, I’m sure we just chatted over text. That’s easier than actually talking or seeing one another. And I’m just too busy for one more thing these days.

One. More. Thing.

That sounds so dismissive. Like our budding friendship isn’t important enough to be a priority in my crazy life. “But it is important!” my inner voice screams. It’s just hard to keep momentum going when I am being pulled from ten different directions at any given moment.

Why can’t I remember how important it is for me to make time for her? 

Oh, my heart aches for what our friendship could have been. We might have started a business together. Maybe we could have bought a condo on the beach and vacationed there every summer. Who knows what adventures awaited us that now we won’t experience due to life getting in the way?  Due to me allowing life to get in the way.

That’s really what happened. I let everyone else dictate my schedule and forgot to make our friendship a vital necessity. It really is vital and it really is a necessity. Remembering this fact every single day instead of just in moments of stress and overwhelm is the only way to keep it alive, however.

Let’s keep it alive. I don’t want our friendship to be known as something that was almost good but could really have been great. I want it to last longer than my ever changing feelings and inconsistent schedule. We’re both worth the investment, after all.

Yes, I will reschedule twenty times if it means that I eventually get to spend time with you. The reward, your beautiful soul-mending, life-giving friendship, is worth the effort.

Can we try again?