Friends

Since I've been doing a ton of gardening lately, I've also been doing a ton of thinking, and my thoughts are often wandering to friendships - old, new, healthy, dead - and how they got that way.

There's something about Actors, especially, people who move from project to project, working with new people all the time. It's a bit of a bubble, an intense sort of experience that can make dear friends out of people you work with for only a few months. What generally happens is that you move on after the project, get busy, and rarely keep up with those new amazing friends who you connected with. You make new friends, and the cycle continues. I have a million friends like that - people who I genuinely care for, and would go to the wall for if they needed me to right now. But have I talked to them in years? No. Do I still love them with all my heart and wish them the best? Yes. Do I stalk them on Facebook occasionally to find out where they are and see if they're making their dreams come true? Yes. Yes. Yes. Will I ever see them again? Who knows? But they hold a very special place in my heart, and I think about them - not every day (unless I'm gardening and stewing on friendships) - but often.

There are the friendships that you choose to let go along the way - the ones that are really unhealthy - the people who you dread seeing their phone number pop up. Who, once upon a time, you were so close with, but now... their friendship feels like a sinking ship, or one-sided, or too much work. There's never any FUN in the friendship, it's all doom and gloom and me,me,me. I've had a few of those, and (despite my guilty conscience), have chosen to let those go along the way. Realizing that life is WAAAAY too short to waste any more energy on someone who sucks everything right out of you. Have you experienced one of those friendships?

Then there are those "lifetime" relationships. The kind where, no matter how long it's been, no matter how much you've both changed or how much "life" has happened during the in-between, you pick the relationship up right where you left it off. Most of us can count those friendships on one hand. I'm blessed - I can count them on two. And because these are such unique, special friendships - they understand when I haven't called them in months, as do I understand when they've been MIA, living their life. And I know that when the time is right, we'll connect again and it will be good, so good.

As I get older, I realize that I have fewer and fewer friends that I keep up with regularly. But the quality of the relationships that I still have is so much deeper, even when we don't see or talk to each other often. And you know? I'm okay with that. I'm okay with a few good friends.

You know what else? It's time to put in a little more effort with the ones I care about.