Am I the one who holds all my friendships together?

I don't make new years resolutions, but at the start of the year I decided that I would not contact any of my friends and see how long it took them to contact me first.

I have been in my adopted country now for 14 years and have made many friends, mainly from companies I have worked for, so who long did that last - well I broke down in February when it was Bob's birthday and called him, he didn't answer, I didn't leave a message - but he called back and we had a really nice long chat.

So now it's just past St. Patrick's day and of the old crowd that I always organize the "Get togethers" - I have spoken to Bob and Trsh who I happened to bump it at my favourite Coffee shop, who hadn't replied to any of my email or text messages, but was thrilled to see me ... or was that just a put on?

Maybe my expectations of my friends is just too much, we're not all the same and perhaps we outgrow each other and don't feel the need to see one another or talk to one another that often anymore.  I was told by a friend in South Africa that she sees me on Facebook all the time, so it feels like she is in contact with me all the time, is that just an excuse for not making actual contact with someone?  Have we become reliant on our Social Media to feel close to our friends? 

On another side frenimies that I have not kept in touch with for reasons other than I have been too busy, have suddenly crept out of the woodwork.  I bumped into my ex boss on a flight back from London, she pretended not to see me, was so funny as there is a story there.  Then Pete who came to visit us in Dublin about 3 years ago and then dropped off the face of the earth, called.  I got a weird email from the mother of one of  Em's frenimies who hadn't spoken to me since last year August, I replied but heard nothing since.  And then an old work colleague phoned and started asking really rude personal questions about our finances, so I cut him short .... I think I have become so less tolerant in my more mature years. 

I guess at times you discover who really are your real friends.  

I guess once again, I am going to be the one to pick up the phone and phone all those people I haven't spoken to in ages, make arrangements to see them and then see once again how long it will take before they contact me again, or will I just be the one who reaches out all the time?

Old Friends

Aren't Simon & Garfunkel just amazing, 2 guys and a guitar and they have sold milions of records. We saw them at the RDS in 2004, when Gwen came over for Emily's 1st birthday and they are just incredible. Paul Simon is 68 this year, have a look at his web site: http://www.paulsimon.com/

The reason I posted this video here is because I have an incredible story to tell. I have this friend we will call her M for now. Well M and I became friends when I worked for the same company as her back in 1988 (wow more than 20 years ago now). Anyway we were pretty good friends and after I got married we seemed to drift apart, the last time I saw M was in 1998.

I often thought about M and what had happened to her and then last year when we moved into our house and opened all our boxes that had been shut up for the most of 7 years, I got to opening the biggest and heaviest box of all my photo albums.

This Christmas I was paging through one of my albums and came across some photos which were taken at Christmas 1994 when a group of us friends decided to climb in the car and head down to the coast for Christmas and ended up in Blythesdale where M was spending Christmas with her parents. She found us some last minute accommodation and we headed down, her mum was so kind to invite us to join the family for Christmas lunch.

So I got onto the Internet just before Christmas and decided to see if I could trace M, I facebooked her, went onto SA Reunited but no luck, so eventually I just googled her and came across and email address. So I thought I would email and with a bit of luck I might get the right person. This happened on the 21st of December, and would you believe on the 22nd I got an email back, it turned out that M was in SA because her mom was very ill.

So during December we occasionally emailed each other and I got the sad news that her mum passed away that very day that she emailed me. I told her I would contact her when she was back home in the UK. So last Sunday M phoned me and we were on the phone for almost an hour catching up, and although more than 10 years had passed between us we were able to pick up where we left off.

The weird thing is she said that another friend had passed away and her husband had contacted M to let her know, So M went through all her photos and found photos from that time which was probably back in 1993 when we had a few parties and used to all hang out together, so she had all these photos in a folder and was carrying them round where ever she went and even took them to SA when she went to see her mom before she passed away, and then of course I emailed her.

It's just amazing how fate has a hand in all kinds of things and I do believe that signals are passed by people to other people via the mental telepathy line, how do these things work?