Day Three::The Rules of the Play Ground Still Apply

When I was in school, grade school through high school, maintaining friendships was pretty easy.Eevery year you were exposed to some new and interesting people and through the shared misery of math class, mean spirited nuns, or whatever - friendships were foraged. The best friendships were cemented by shared "off time," notes passed in between class, and lots of phone time.

Things got a little more difficult in college, you don't see the same people for every class, let alone for a whole year. However through sorority life, the binds of friendship were foraged. This time they were strengthened by some tried and true methods - notes left on doors, the occasional phone calls, but more often than note by crazy adventures (and some misadventures).

We live in a time where we have all the advantages as far as staying connected with our friends. Where my Mom kept in touch with girlfriends via expensive long distance calls and snail mail, we have free long distance thanks to our cell phones, instantaneous email, and a variety of other tools to assure that we stay connected but still we manage to drift apart.

I am ashamed to admit that as an adult I seem to have forgotten the important lessons of friendship I learned in my youth. Friends are harder to make and those true kindred spirits, those best friends are even harder to come by. In the last year of my life I really looked back at all the technological advantages I have, the wonderful people that I've met, and I wondered where it all went wrong for me?

I believe that we all learn at a pretty early age, that romantic relationships require work; however, we expect other relationships to come effortlessly.

I think for me the best real life example I have is the relationship I have with my sister. At six years younger than me, we didn't seem to have anything in common growing up. We have such very different interests that as we got older we seemed to move further and further apart, rather than closer together.

At some point the light really came on for me, and I realized that of course we weren't very close - we hardly talked at all, which was as much my fault as it was hers. I set a small goal of trying to call her at least once a week, and for the most part I do. I admit that we don't talk every week, but on occasion we talk several times a week. I'm starting to have the relationship I always wanted with my sister.

The important thing for me is to remember that the things we learned about friendship are still important in our grown up lives, friendship is still about "passing notes," phone calls, and the occasional adventure (or misadventure). Sure the notes we pass, the length of the calls may have changed but the satisfaction of maintaining a friendship never fades with time.