I have a friend. She used to actually be a pretty close friend. We have so many fun memories, adventures we took, secrets we shared, long talks about life, parallel life experience. If I wasn’t calling my mom or my sister, her number was next on the list.

But something happened. I can’t even remember if it was a someTHING, or some THINGS. I can’t remember if it was even something at all.

I would call or email and she wouldn’t answer right away. Over time, the distance began to grow wider, the gaps between our conversations longer. Sometimes it took 2-3 tries before she would respond to me. My text messages to her sat out there in space, like I had never sent them to begin with. And then, out of the blue, she would reappear in my inbox, always with an apology for how long it had been.

I think about her OFTEN. Her image appears in my thoughts, and I wonder what she is doing today. I wonder what her Thanksgiving will be like this year. I wonder if she feels this void like I do. I wonder if she no longer wants a relationship with me. Is that why she went silent and disappeared from my routine? I mean, friendship cannot be one-sided, can it? It is like a partnership, right? Both parties must engage for the friendship to be healthy and living. I think, anyway…

If she would just say, “Hey,” I would be so happy.

FLIP SIDE.

I am that friend. I used to actually be a pretty close friend.

I don’t know what happened. Evolution of time, I guess.

I would get a call or a text during a meeting, or my phone would be on silent as it always is at work, and I wouldn’t see that I had missed a call until much later, but for some reason or another, I couldn’t respond right away. Maybe I was driving, maybe I was trying to remember all the things I had to get at the grocery store. Maybe I only had two minutes and knew that a phone call would require 32 minutes to catch up.

At first, it was a few hours of neglect and forgetting to respond. Sometimes I knew I should respond but my brain was tired and I just didn’t have it in me to talk or text or send an email. And then it would be the next day. And intentions were spot on – it was on my list. Gotta send that email today. Gotta make that phone call today. And at the end of the day, after second-guessing several times if this was a good time to call, or after a long day of focused computer-staring work, I just didn’t.

I just didn’t.

And the guilt began to grow in that petri dish of a conscious. It grew so much that every time I think of her, I think of the memories and that pit in the stomach resurfaces. Bad friend, Rhonda. Bad, bad friend.

I have that same feeling when I look at my calendar and see birthdays or anniversaries that I missed sending a card. I have that same feeling when a close friend gives me an incredible gift that took effort and thought, and I put off thinking ahead, so Amazon ordering or email gift card it is.

Why am I like this? Is it menopause? Is it lack of character? Is it laziness? Is it a mental/emotional misfiring? Is it just plain thoughtlessness?

Today, I am grateful for an abundance of friends, rather than a lack of them.

Today, I am grateful for those close friends who are still close friends even in the distance. They are the ones who understand and just pick up where we left off, with no mind to what happened in the gap.

Today, I am grateful for forgiveness and understanding.

Today, I am grateful for sunrises and fresh new days to try again.

Today, I am grateful for the age-old wisdom that in order to HAVE a friend, you need to BE a friend.

Today, I am grateful for reflection I’ve had thinking about all my friends and the diversity in my circle.

Today, I am grateful for that friend who finished her email last week with, “I will always love you.”

Today, I am grateful for a friend who is closer than a brother, who really loves me, who is always there and waiting for me, when I “pick up the phone” and call.

Today, I am grateful for the reminder through a song that was on the radio as I drove to work, that I’ve got a friend.