Respond to calls, emails, and other messages sooner and more frequently (and hell, initiate them more, too)

I wrote to my friend this week. She is kind of my elementary school/pen pal friend. I’ve known her forever. We started writing to each other when I was 14, two years after I started homeschooling. We used to write several times a month, but it has dwindled to a few times a year now that we are both busy adults.

I miss her, and I don’t want to forget about her. I hope she writes back soon!

I have let too many friendships drift away because I was too busy to write/call/e-mail. I can’t just wait around to be less busy, that won’t happen. I have a very full schedule, but I am going to try to make more time for the people in my life I care about. I don’t want to wind my way through ten years and find out at the end that I have lost out by being too busy.

After all, it takes a lot of work to start a friendship, and it is really tough to re-kindle old relationships once they have drifted away. Things are never the same once you lose touch, so isn’t it worth doing a little extra work now to keep the ties strong? I think so. I think it would be sad if I never talked to my best friend from college, or stopped writing to my bff from elementary, or only heard from my brother at Christmas. Not every friendship is made to last, some fade as quickly as they come into being… but some should be treasured and nourished.

I am going to do better, and I think I will be happier if I succeed.