Staying in Touch

I must be the first to admit, I am not the best when it comes to staying in touch. Now don't get me wrong, it's not that I once I leave I completely stop thinking about my friends. I just am horrible at keeping in touch. I left high school for Missouri and I did a poor if not awful job at staying in touch with my high school friends. Then our lives seemed to be so far apart and for the most part I didn't even know where to start looking for them. But the weird thing is, I still think about my friends a lot, like Jessica Collins, I wonder what she is up to, Andrew Shook, Debbie Walters, Mark Harris... I also sometimes think about my old cross country coach... Coach Vitale, I am not even sure of his first name. Funny. I just remembered it's Craig Vitale.

on In college, I had so many different groups of friends. My Maneater School Newspaper staff crowd, my Journalism School friends, and the KOMU crowd. I often think about my friend Liz Cafer, I have tried looking her up but never seem to find her. I recently found my friend GrinerMyspace and I know Ahmer (sp) writes for the Chicago Tribune. I wonder what J.T. is up to? Is Scott Schmidt still at KOMU? I wonder how my old roomates Jenny & Angela are doing as Moms. What Elizabeth did after Yale? I wonder where Kale & Elizabeth are, I know Aimee is in D.C. But I don't call her nearly as much as I should.

Then I moved to Kansas City and I had friends from work, my neighbors and my running crowd. And I think about them all a lot at different times. I wonder how my running partner Anne Marie is doing with her work in Africa. I actually got to see a lot of my KCTV friends in June. It was nice to touch base again, it really didn't seem like 6 years since I had left. Then there are my neighbors, like Ruthie, whose phone number is still in my phone, not sure why I haven't deleted it, but I will never call her again, because if I did she would be like ok, who are you? Or my friend Jason, who used to go shopping with me when I got off of my morning shift, who I think moved back to Texas but really I have no idea.

Even here in Michigan, I have my friends from WDIV. I do make an effort to see them, but it easier to see some than others. There is also The Henry Ford. When you work with people, I have found that you form such close relationships, because you see them almost more than you see your family, but eventually they leave or you leave and you get busy. The next thing you know, it's an email here and an email there.

But it's wierd, as I think about these people, I wonder am I the only one that does this? Do other people do it? Do I pop into any of my old friends heads at strange times? And if so what do they think about?

Every time I think of these people it's happy memories. I wonder what they are up to now, if I will ever see them again. I wonder if I ever pop into their minds or do I pop into other peoples minds, people I am not thinking about? Don't get me wrong, I think as life goes on your friends change, because there is no way to keep every intense friendships ongoing, with everyone you meet. I do admire my friends who seem to have a lot of long lasting friendships, with people from all different times in their lives. I do have friendships from childhood, college and my professional life and I do have many friends that I have had for a long time, most of these friends are friends that can tolerate my absence. That know that even thought I am not emailing or calling I am thinking about them. They are patient with me and usually when we get back together we pick up right where we left off.

I am pretty good with the cell phone, especially on my commute in the car on the way home, but that doesn't really work with people who are employed do to the fact that I commute home between 3:30 - 4:30 EST. I am also an ace with the instant messenger and of course now I have incorporated skyping into my evening regimen. I can do this all while watching ANTM and all my favorites on MTV. However my internet has been slower lately so I must stick with the chat option, I haven't had tons of luck with the internet phone calls.

Why not email: I love to get email, however, I rarely respond. Why not? Well usually when I check my email I am rushing around, or at work. So I say to myself, I am not going to write back now, I am going to wait until I have time to put the proper thought into the email, usually I will start to write the email but then I have to you know work. Well needless to say by the time I sit down with the proper thought it has been days, if not weeks and then everything is old, so I should start again but I don't have time and then the vicious cycle repeats itself.

How to end this blog? Well first I have to thank those who put up with me and my not so constant contact. And to my new friends, be fore warned if you haven't heard from me, it's not that I am not thinking about you. I am just not emailing you. Or better yet, you should just start a blog, I will read that and respond with a witty comment. Or at least one I think is witty.