Reaching Out

The summer I turned 16 I had a job at a local amusement park. During the first couple of weeks I met a girl who worked in the same gift shop I did. We hit it off and became friends right away.

We were best friends for 2-3 years after that - we spent weekends together, evenings, summer. She came with us to the cottage in the summer. I  went on my first trip without my parents with her (we took her brother to Boston when we were 18 for a karate tournament - THAT trip is a blog in itself!)

The thing is, the friendship wasn't all good. We had problems and eventually it just got too hard to be friends. We drifted apart, she went to college out of town and we never recovered from that physical distance.

I did miss my friendship with her, we shared a lot and though it was full of ups and downs I do have mostly good memories.

We connected on Facebook a couple of years ago. We've chatted on the phone off and on and we even made plans to go to dinner but I was pregnant with Connor, going through a lot with Sean still and not sure I wanted to tread those waters at the time so I backed out.

My new year's resolution involved reaching out to old friends. I have a lot of old friends who I've drifted apart from. We grew up, we married or went to school or had kids or all the other things that happen that make you grow apart from your friends. It's sad and I know it's just one of those things but then I think, why do we have to settle for that?

I've spent far too many years with my bff being the one real friend I have outside of my husband and sisters in law. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, I like my husband (which is handy) and I like my sisters in law and I like my bff but I have room for more friends. I am a firm believer in the quality of your friends being more important than the quantity but I think I had quality friends.

Yesterday I sent an email to that friend I had when I was 16 and asked her if she wanted to get together for dinner - the one I backed out of 3 years ago. She said sure so hopefully she won't back out this time and we can reconnect.

Who knows if our friendship will be rekindled. Maybe it will or maybe we've just grown too far apart but if I don't reach out I'm never going to know.