A Friend A Day

Friends.

(The people in your life, not the TV show)

When you stop and think about it, you realise that they're actually amazing creatures, aren't they?

Someone once told me that people come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, especially since I've been feeling very disconnected from some of my Sydney based friends in the last month or so. A few in particular (including some so-called Besties), have really upset or hurt me in recent weeks and I've been contemplating whether it is better to let these friendships go or just work harder to keep them. The jury's still out... I'm a little tired of being the instigator of all the communication.

Bridget Jones once said that her Urban Singleton Family (ie her friends) were every bit as important and supportive as her real family. It's a very valid point. On the whole I would tend to agree with her. In fact I'd probably go even further and say that they can be more supportive at times than your real family. But with the highs also come the lows and sometimes your friends can let you down. Fact.

So. Yeah. Friends. (That's me not being able to think of a good segueway)

Working at the Dead Egyptian Thing yesterday, I was pondering this funny thing called friendship when a few things happened:

Firstly, I looked up to see an old flatmate/friend of mine from my early Sydney days standing in the queue for tickets with his wife and two daughters. He'd changed jobs since moving to Melbourne about 10 years ago and I'd changed email and phone numbers, so we had lost touch. There was much joyful exclaiming to be had... it was great to see both him and his wife (who I knew well, since he first started dating her when we were living in a huge old house in Neutral Bay) and we'll be catching up properly very soon.

Secondly, while I was later explaining to my colleague who these people were, I was reminded of some of the more hilarious events that happened when we were house sharing and I resolved to start writing them down. I thought a "Friend A Day" blog might be a good way to do this... changing the names of course. Some pretty funny things happened when we were living in that house.

Thirdly, as I was on the train home from work, I texted our third housemate from the Neutral Bay days to tell her of the catch up and was reminded of some of the stories involving her. She later rang to get more details and as we were speaking I thought how lovely it was to catch up with old friends after feeling somewhat abandoned by others. It was then I decided to make an effort to not only share some of the stories of my friends but to actually get in touch with them - at least one per day. Call, skype, text, email or snail mail - any method was fine. Facebook doesn't count. That's a lazy way to maintain friendships. Today I've already been in touch with two friends and have made a mental list of others I want to reconnect with tomorrow.

So that's my new little project. Expect some funny stories, some sad stories and some totally bizarre stories about my friendships through my life.

And if you're an old friend I haven't been in touch with for a while, you never know - a message from me might be coming your way sooner than you think!

x