No one ever told me how hard it would be to coordinate time with my friends once I reached adulthood.
I mean, sure, quality time with family members does get harder as we age, but, that seems to clear up easily around major holidays.
Of course, that might also just be my mom’s steadfast rules about spending time together for big events and holidays versus what other families do.
But, still, there feels like there is less to juggle when everyone can expect the same scheduling across seasonal holidays and events – even the somewhat minor ones.
However, in my experience, friendships suffer more in the long run.
Despite the variances that come with careers, health issues or the families they build on their own, we’re still left with underlying differences.
I know that out of my core friend group, I get to see most often the things that keep us apart are distance and our careers.
A lot of our family members are pretty encouraging about us hanging out, and we often try to include everyone as much as possible – like spouses or even kids in some cases.
But, we’re also all from different cultural and religious backgrounds, so lining up on major holidays is really hit-or-miss across the board.
Still, I’m glad for those friends who are closer to home and the fact that despite everything working against us, we try to keep in contact.
I mean, being able to hold onto friendships that were made in high school or early college years despite life throwing limiters on us is kind of an accomplishment I’m proud to be part of.
Even speaking with older generations, it seems like the years and life caused drifting and rifts that eventually made things fall by the wayside, especially if a friend moved hours or states away.
That’s when I chalk it up to probably also being easier for us nowadays.
The advances in technology are great at keeping folks connected and seem to enable better communication.
I mean, before cellphones and the Internet we were stuck with telephones and snail mail – both of which had their own limits.
I don’t even want to think about how limited everyone was before snail mail!
So, overall, I’m grateful for what we have now and how it keeps us in arm’s reach of each other.
Even if there’s always one person in the group chat who’s up odd hours from the rest of us and sends too many messages in the middle of the night or wee hours in the morning.
I just endeavor to make sure my friends know they are loved and that I’m appreciative of all of our time spent together because I know that life can change in the blink of an eye.
Now, the friends located closer to home are probably going to see me more often than the rest, but with my busy schedule, that’s still pretty difficult to manage.
Still, when we can all get together for even a handful of hours, the feelings of joy and care despite aggressively and competitively playing video and card games, there can be a sort of relaxation sensation I didn’t expect.
I may have taken such sentiments for granted when we were younger, but after experiencing so many losses in the past 20 year, I try to make sure to savor these moments now.
