Tonight I was out at a dinner with a friend to catch up and hang out. It was nice to get out of the house and have a reason to dress up. Or dress down as the case may be. I decided to find something a little less school-teacher-ish after my day of subbing. Anyway, the point was that I was looking around the dinner and noticed few tables of girls that seemed like they did this sort of thing regularly. It could be that the holidays are here and they're catching up after a year of not seeing each other, but they seemed a lot more familiar than that.
It reminded me of the Tuesday Night Club and I wondered if that's the way we look to outsiders (minus the fact that we have guys in our group) and if we'd ever be together again quite as regularly as we were before. These days we're all scattered around; one in Africa, one in Alabama, some still in East Lansing. I miss getting together, I miss socializing.
I wonder if we'll stick it out and hope we will. I think about how friends tend to come and go in my life and wonder if it says something about me or my efforts. It's true, I'm not very good with email, even though I'd like to think I am. Often stuff sits in my inbox for a week, and by the time I get around to replying it can be as long as a month.
I think about the time someone I hadn't seen in five years saw me at a gathering and told me to keep in touch. We exchanged emails and I wonder if I'll ever hear from that person again. Why can't we leave it at "It was nice to see you again." And go on with our lives. I think it's worse to say "Let's keep in touch" when it isn't really meant. Or is it meant and we just get busy.
The holidays always get me thinking about people I haven't seen in years or months or days or hours. Maybe they'd like to keep in touch too, but they get as busy as I am. Maybe they aren't that good with email either. Maybe they read this webpage and are too busy to leave a comment or think they're keeping up with me when really it's so one sided. Ariel at Electrolicious said that while you might feel like you're keeping up by reading the website, you're really not because while you know what I'm up to I have no idea you're there unless you let me know. And like her, this is really directed at people that don't keep weblogs, journals or post on message boards with me. Just a thought. Happy Holidays.
