There is a second part to my previous blog post, the
part about what happens after we say our beautiful and heartfelt goodbyes with
the people we love. But this part starts with a less-sunny confession:
I am terrible at staying in touch with people.
I always promise that I will. (I feel supremely guilty
when the words are escaping from my mouth in an eager effort to stem the
sadness of saying goodbye, when I know perfectly well that all I´ll do is stalk
them on Facebook a few times and that, even if I did own a summer cottage in
the Hamptons, I´d never actually invite them out for the weekend.) Whew. It
feels good to get that off my chest.
No matter how special a person is to me or how many
great memories we shared, no matter how many times I think about them or see something
in my day that reminds me of them, no matter how much I truly want to or intend
to talk to them, and despite the multitude of communication devices available
to me, staying in touch in practice is so much more difficult than I think it
is when I make my parting promises.
But why is it so tough? I know that members of my generation
should not complain. Our parents had to call one another on their landlines and
their phones still had cords attached to them. Our grandparents wrote
sentimental, longhand letters on stationary that was sealed with dripped wax and
pressed by family crest-adorned rings. Our ancestors finger-painted in caves
with the hope that some cute bipedal mate would also like red antelopes. But we
have cell phones and Wifi-capable devices and Facebook and a thousand different
apps that allow us show real-time pictures of meals we´re eating and to
creepily contact people we may or may not have ever met. We have no excuse for
not staying in touch with our friends, not when they´re a few pushes of a
button away.
The reality is, however, that staying in touch with
someone requires heartfelt commitment, not just button punching. There is the
time commitment of writing, calling, texting, or Skyping. Even if an email can
be sent in just five minutes, choosing that activity takes us away from the
immediate present, the here and now of our new life away from that other person.
Also, reaching out to someone, especially after a significant amount of time
apart, is scary – you may not reconnect with the other person or receive a
response from them as you had expected. Or you may see a good friendship slowly
and sadly fade away. Finally, maintaining a relationship requires a mutual
commitment to vulnerability and honesty. To stay involved in another´s life
means that real information, feelings, thoughts, and stories must be shared. In
short, staying in touch is about the quality of the conversations and the genuine
sentiment of the correspondence, not the quantity of emails in an inbox.
In the past year and nine months, I have felt so loved
by those I left behind. I´ve had great conversations, at times profound and at
times just plain silly. I´ve received funny letters, heartfelt emails, and
surprise packages. I´ve signed off from Skype conversations with a deep sense
of awe and gratitude at what we were able to share. Time and time again, I´ve
been reminded that true friendship means you can go months, or years, without
talking and when you finally do, you realize nothing has changed. That the
relationship has grown as both parties have independently grown.
So when I say that I don´t want to catch up with
people, I mean that I don´t just want to catch up with people. “Catching
up” means a description of your current job and a list of travels and
activities. Catching up is a start, but it doesn´t tell the full story of who
you are and it doesn´t deepen a friendship. So let´s talk about the things that
really suck in the world right now and laugh about that one night in college
and be scared together about the future. Let´s comfort each other and vent our
frustrations and tell funny stories and ask each other for advice. Let´s be
amazed that someone can know us so well even from the other side of the world
and let the colors of our friendship sparkle and shine just like the sequins on
those thrift store prom dresses we used to wear.
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