keep in touch with friends

A few months back I reconnected with a very dear friend of mine from college via Facebook. This past Saturday the two of us had a phone date. It was so wonderful to hear his voice again after so many years. Will and I spoke for two and a half hours. After five years, we had a lot to catch up on. I told him that I am never ever ever falling out of touch with him again. No siree-bob, he is stuck with me from now till eternity. He thought that sounded just fine.

Last weekend I went to my ten year high school reunion! Out of a graduating class of 50, 15 of us showed up, which was a really good turn out. I hadn’t seen most of the people in the group since graduation and it was so fun talking to them and catching up. The event was expected to last maybe two or three hours. It wound up lasting ten. We all had such a fabulous time we’re considering making it an annual event.

Today I wrote emails to Dave, Chris, Adrienne, Miriam, and I wrote half an email to Will which I plan to finish up tomorrow. Last night I called Monica and spoke to her for about an hour. We’re going to try and get together this weekend.

This week I called Heather, Gayle, and Tina; I emailed Gemma, and I sent letters to D. and Adrienne. No one can say my friends don’t know I love them. Not this week.

Back in college I was the Christmas card queen. Every year I sent out fabulously funny holiday cards to everyone I knew and got tons of great ones in return. After graduation, I fell out of the habit, not just of sending Christmas cards, but of writing letters, emails, and even picking up the friggin telephone!

This year I resolved to return to my old ways! Last weekend I bought two boxes of holiday cards. However, when I sat down with my address book to start writing them I realized that I didn’t have an updated mailing address for ANY of the people I wanted to send cards or gifts to!!! All the contact info. I had was circa 2003! That is how horrible my stay-in-touch skills had become.

So, I sent out a mass email asking everyone to send me new contact information. And to my surprise and delight, I received 16 responses of the 22 requests I made! I was expecting to get only 2 or 3. I am so psyched I’ve already written out 10 of the cards! Many of them are to people I haven’t communicated with in 5+ years. I feel really great being able to do this and even better that these people are still interested in communicating with me.

Yesterday, I got a letter from a young woman I knew only peripherally in college, and have come in closer contact with lately due to our mutual Livejournal usage. Now that I have something to respond to maybe I’ll finally sit down and write a letter.

Last night I called two college friends who I hadn’t spoken to in a while.

I’m thinking I need to revive the lost art of letter writing.