I’ve had some really good friends in my life. When I was a child, I assumed that I would be friends with them forever. I still cling to them. I have their addresses. I know where they are and what they are going through in their lives. I try to see them every once and awhile. I try calling. I try emailing them. All of this never quite feels like it did when we were friends.

Nobody sees a flower – really – it is so small it takes time – we haven’t time – and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.  – Georgia O’Keeffe (1887 – 1986)

I feel guilty that I don’t really need to see them anymore. I’m not in their lives as much as I used to be. Thinking about the daunting task of Christmas cards, brings to mind how many people used to be in my life that I haven’t heard from. Do I send them a card? Did they send me one last year? Do they even care? Do I?

There isn’t much better in this life than finding a way to spend a few hours in conversation with people you respect and love. You have to carve this time out of your life because you aren’t really living without it.  – Real Live Preacher, RealLivePreacher.com Weblog, August 27, 2003

Last week, when I was driving home, I decided that it’s ok. It’s ok that they’re not in my life anymore. It’s ok that I don’t need them anymore. It’s ok that they don’t need me anymore. We were friends for awhile, but now we are separate. We have no shared experiences beyond that brief moment in the past and not being friends anymore is just fine. I don’t have to send them a Christmas card. I don’t have to expend energy to try to rekindle what we once had.

True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self, and in the next from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.  – Joseph Addison (1672 – 1719), The Spectator, March 17, 1911

I’m getting only enough Christmas cards this year to send to the people who are still actively in my life. If I don’t hurry, they will be New Year’s cards. To all the others, I still miss what we once had. Have a wonderful life and if you miss me, drop me a line.