When I left Atlanta and moved up here to DC, I thought I knew what the hardest part of adjusting would be. The hardest part of leaving was, of course, saying goodbye to the people I'd grown close to over the years. And the hardest part of arriving some place new was going to be finding new people to get to know! Except, it wasn't, really. I've met some great new people and reconnected with some old friends in the area, all without too much consternation! But what's really been the hardest task has been keeping in touch with those I left behind in Atlanta and other places before.
In the past few days, I've caught up with a bunch of friends in Atlanta, and realized that I have much less of an idea of what they're up to day to day than I'd like! I'm planning to head home to NJ soon to finally see my parents' new house finished, and in talking to two close friends, I discovered they had plans that will bring them close to me, except about a week earlier. Ironically, I had originally planned my trip home a week earlier, but then had moved it to make the trip more convenient. Upon relaying this, they apologized for not keeping me more appraised. Which I thought was a funny thing to do, because it's not like I had made any more of an effort to do the same about my plans to go to NJ! These kinds of things, which in Atlanta would have come up in every day conversations, just can't be as effortlessly communicated from afar.
And in hindsight, I already knew this to be true, because it was the same when I left NJ for Indiana to go to Notre Dame, and again when I left ND to go to Atlanta for Georgia Tech. But I never really thought of it that way! Admittedly, when I went to college, I didn't keep in touch with people well. I saw everybody when I went home, and that was about it. And as we all went our separate ways, that happened less and less, as families moved away. And after college, we all scattered across the country, and most (the ones sane enough to get a paying job) were no longer tied to an academic calendar, so we no longer had breaks that lined up so we could catch up.
And after college, the same thing happened. As my friends and I graduated and moved on, we spread around the country, some with jobs, others going on to grad school or med school (or the occasional bold soul that did both!). But this time I was more prepared. I knew I was bad at it, so I was going to make an effort. And yet, I still fell out of touch with all but the very few closest of friends as the rigor of grad school impressed its importance on me.
So this time around, things were going to be different, I told myself! And to a point, they are, but only because I keep reminding myself that keeping in touch requires effort on my part. I still find myself getting caught up in my own life. Between buying a house, getting settled at work, making time for a relationship, and all the other things that go on, it's all too easy to not reach out to those I don't see every day. But now I catch myself every so often, and force myself to pick up the phone and get in touch
Perhaps technology helps that. At the end of high school, we had AIM, email, and phone calls, and had it not been for AIM, I'm pretty sure I would never have talked to anyone! In high school I hated talking on the phone, and emails never led to good conversations, just long updates every so often when you hadn't talked to people. Now we have Google Hangouts, Facebook, Twitter, SMS, Snapchat, etc... It's so much easier to send a quick, direct message from anywhere at any time (even the middle of a strange neighborhood in Hong Kong).
But I think more than that, I've really grown to appreciate a good friend so much more than I did as a kid. Now I'm eager to find the time to pick up the phone and call someone for no reason at all other than to just say "Hi!". And the best thing about great friends is that, no matter how long you go without talking to them, they don't blame you, and they're just as eager to say "Hi!" back...
PS - Sorry there's no exciting pictures to go with this one! Just wait for the next one, I promise there'll be enough to make up for it!
