Lasting Friendships

Are there any? When you move a lot, you tend to lose touch with them. You would think that in this day and age with the many methods of communication at your fingers, that no one would ever lose touch. But yet I have. Or should I say, they have. I speak to one friend from high school, and that's only a couple of times a year, if that. I don't talk to anyone else from any of my school years. We did first after I moved each time...an occasional letter, but that all faded away. I have rediscovered some friends from school through Classmates.com but after a couple of intro-catch-up messages, not another word. Although now I have found my way onto their mass mailing lists...harumph...

Even friends I met during university, which was just a few years ago, have faded away. Once in a while I get a phonecall from my old roomie, or my really good friend Nat, and I chat daily with my friend Steve. E-mail here and there from other uni friends. But I fear that once I move or change my e-mail, they will fade too.

Then there are the friends I have here. One moved to NWT and I hardly hear from her anymore. I know, things change, people move on, but it makes me think about something a co-worker said to me - our workplace has such a huge turnover that its hard investing time in a relationship with anyone if you know they will likely leave in a year or two. Why bother? So I ask myself the same thing...do I really want to invest time, energy and emotion in these friends I have made here? Will they even remember me after I move on next year? How long will I last in their address book, or they in mine?

I've often envied those who grow up in the same town and continue to work and make their life there. They are the ones who seem to have lasting friendships, people they went to kindergarten with. That is impossible for me...even if I found someone I went to kindergarten with, that was also the last time I saw them. I don't have a "best friend" although my friend Nat and I are very close, we have grown apart these last few years since we both moved away from our university town where we met. Now, we can still call one another up and the missing months melt away, but I don't know when I'll ever see her again, or when the last phonecall from her might just be, the last phonecall before we lose touch.

Its sad really. But what to do? I hate saying good-byes, but do I just not make any more close friends for fear of losing them? I don't think that's the answer...it makes for a very lonely life. Maybe it just makes for a large network of friends throughout the world?