This morning I received a Messenger message. Right out of the blue.
It was someone from whom I've not heard for a long time. Last Christmas I didn't send a card.
Having said that, the person and her family were very important to me at one time having been part of my New Zealand life and having stayed with me here on Lewis. It seemed a shame to have lost contact. They have always remained in my thoughts. I have a natural tendency to keep in touch with people who have been important in my life even if it is only sporadically. I hate losing contact even with people on the other side of the world living in a world I inhabit in spirit but no longer inhabit in body.
By the time we'd caught up it was as if there had been no time lost. We were totally at ease notwithstanding the hiatus.
I've learned a lesson today.
Do you naturally keep in touch with people in your past life?
I try to keep in contact with people . I also have to make myself available so people can find me.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Red, your second point is a very important one that I shall adopt.
DeleteYes...I do. This morning, in fact, I spoke with three people (included, though, not included in our conversations...their spouses...if that makes sense...the spouses were elsewhere, but no less important to our conversations).
ReplyDeleteThe friends I spoke with today have been in my life since I was a kid...and that is a long, long time ago. They are important to me today, as they were back then. We don't have to see each other to ensure the status quo remains. They are important to me...and I know vice versa applies.
Yes, Lee, I would always have thought you were a 'keep in touch' person. Apart from anything else you have lived a life meeting and being with so many interesting people.
DeleteJust recently I made contact with the 3 daughters of my late cousin in Canada. My cousin was the nearest thing I had to a brother, and seeing how much his daughters resemble him was very comforting.
ReplyDeleteCro, that's very hear-warming. I'm ashamed to say that all my Canadian cousins and I lost touch many years ago.
DeleteThere are several people I find hard to imagine NOT being in my life one way or another. Sometimes we do not hear from each other in months or even years but we always reconnect at some stage, and it hardly matters who takes the first step. It is then as if we had last been talking a week ago.
ReplyDeleteWith others, frankly I have no interest tomstay in touch but will answer if they send an email or so.
I am also pleased that with a few former boyfriends, we have managed the transition from lovers to friends. With two of these, friendship works much better than a romantic involvement ever did.
Meike, your point about some friendships working so much better than romantic involvements did or would have done is such a valid point. Certainly for me anyway. I have to say, though, that I've not found many friends who have managed that transition. I'm fortunate not to have had many bitter partings but I know many who regard staying in touch never mind being friends with a former romantic partner, quite inexplicable.
DeleteI am very bad at keeping in touch, much to my regret.
ReplyDeleteRecently I tried to find an old school friend and was shocked to discover that she had died about twenty years ago. I am ashamed of myself.
JayCee, so much depends on circumstances and desire. Some people have no desire or see no point in maintaining friendships once there is a distance separation. Some quite the reverse. Neither is right in my humble opinion. It's just what suits.
DeleteI've kept in touch with maybe 20 people, but I pull back from face to face or video meetings because I find them a bit disturbing.
ReplyDeleteTasker, your point about video meetings is a very valid one. I have regular video meetings with friends all over the world: some occasional and some regular, some individual and some group. Indeed I now do 'coffee and crossword' with a particularly close friend who lives near Glasgow so, unless I am staying with her or vice versa, I now find it a very natural way of keeping in touch.
DeleteThere was an aunt I use to call whether she kept in touch with me or not. Others, no reply, then I didn't keep in touch, and that's good with me.
ReplyDeleteMaywyn, oddly it's relatives rather than friends whom I've not kept up with too.
DeleteLike you, I think I have been pretty good at staying in touch one way or another with people who have been important in my life, even if the level of contact varies a lot - from just Christmas cards, or perhaps hearing "about" one another through other mutual friends, to more personal contact. With people I don't talk to regularly, I'm usually better at keeping in touch by writing than by phone (but that also depends on their habits as well as my own.) In general, I think that if you were once good friends (and nothing special happened to break that friendship), it's usually not too difficult to pick up the thread again.
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty much how things are with me too, Monica. There's a response to your last snail mail on it's way this morning.
DeleteWhen my Dad had a visitor he would always say, "hurry back" when they left and "don't be a stranger!". On the phone, just before he said goodbye, he would say, "Call me again!". Your post reminded me of this. I just wish I could keep up with folks as well as he always did. xx
ReplyDeleteKay, "Don't be a stranger!" is a very Island thing too. My next door neighbours moved into town and I call on them frequently. (Not during lockdown of course) She always starts of with "Hello Stranger" even if I saw her the previous week. The fact that she never comes out into the country any more is simply excused by saying "Ah, but you come into town so I don't need to."
DeleteWhen people move on (or when I do) I usually find it very awkward to maintain any kind of relationship without the situation that brought us together. Their is one friend I met in Sydney and only knew for three years before she went to live in Nottingham. She's been gone 15 years and we are in touch every week but even that was rekindled from a bare minimun when she had a cancer diagnosis.
ReplyDeleteI'm not uninterested in people, just a bit socially anxious
Kylie, I'm very interested in your statement that you are "a bit socially anxious." You seem to me to be a "people person" and I can't imagine you not being able to get on with normal people as a matter of course.
DeleteYes, you're right I like people and mostly have good skills but I have this fear that I won't be able to connect with someone in a new context.
DeleteI'll go and meet a blogger I've never met before with less trepidation than seeing an old work friend away from work.
I had to think a lot to articulate that, funny the things we don't know about ourselves 😊
I most certainly do, Graham, [keeping in touch naturally with friends from my past].
ReplyDeleteOnce a friend always a friend. Even if we are all scattered into the winds and all over the world. Someone pops into my mind, a memory, I'll pick up the phone, spontaneously, often after years and years. It's always great. We pick up where we left off, having a laugh. And, unlike some, I am not precious who phones whom first. As long as one of us makes the effort.
Mind you, it can backfire when you call a number and find yourself talking to one of your female friend's successor. Don't ask. It's too long a story. Albeit an amusing one. And, no worries: I knew how to find that particular friend's parents and contact info to get in touch again. I don't give up easily.
To put it another way: Anyone who touches our lives in any meaningful way, be it now, yesterday, fifty years ago, is part of the fabric of who we are. For heaven's sake, and laugh if you must - I do, I am still in contact with people I worked for (bosses) ages ago (unless, of course, they have died in the interim. Shame on them).
U
Ursula, I'm still in touch with a friend I met in Sunday School at the age of 4 (over 70 years ago). One of her daughters is my Goddaughter and she, her partner and their child are visiting me next week (from about 550 miles away).
DeleteMostly my instinct is to cut away from people of the past but there are a handful who continue to travel with me and we keep in touch.
ReplyDeleteYP, my instincts are quite the reverse.
DeleteGraham, that is why you are acceptable
DeleteI once went on friends reunited. It was a school thingy. I took one look at the horrors I'd missed and gave it up as a bad job, I was looking for a quick shag, the women were bad but the blokes far worse. It wasn't all a waste as I now see a lass from those days. She has matured and now likes petrol heads. When I think back to what I'd have sacrificed to give it one we both laugh.
ReplyDeleteAll our peers are now dead, her best mate died diving off the Farne Islands. She was an anaesthetist and got her own breathing muddled up. Fortunately she worked in Teesside somewhere so no harm done. It's part and parcel of living more than two years and ten.
If, Adrian, we had simply expired at "two years and ten" we would have had precious few things to think about.😂
DeleteNothing at all in both our cases.
DeleteIt is often the way with real friends, that any distance and time apart seem insignificant when you get to talking again. I like to keep in touch. Once a friend always a friend. X
ReplyDeleteThank you, Jules, (much belatedly) your comment is, as always, very apt.
DeleteI am a long-time lover of long-distance communication... letter writing ranks among my top favorite hobbies (to include emails)... so I am pretty much up for connecting (or re-connecting) with anyone from my life, so long as I like them and they're good folks. I'm a very private person, in that I don't want random strangers to be able to access my personal information, so it would take a bit of effort for someone who used to know me to find me now. I am not a member of any of the school websites, nor do I use my real name on any social media platforms. If someone finds me, they really put in some effort. Most of my re-connects have been a result of my looking for them. Just recently I reconnected with a school friend from the midwest who moved away when I was not yet in high school. So happy to hear from her again! It's amazing to see how people's lives have changed / grown since one knew them back when.
ReplyDeleteMarcheline, I could not agree more about your wonderful ability to keep in touch in so many ways. It's taken me a rainy day and an afternoon in the house to get back to catch up in Blogland.
DeleteYes, I do keep in contact with a great many people including former workmates and neighbors in the two other states where we resided. My contact is through phone calls, correspondence and emails. It has been a long time since I've been able to see some of these people and hopefully a face-to-face meeting with some will occur in the next few months. While much of this correspondence is with people I have known, in the past few years I've been writing to several people met through online blogging but never in person. Our only contact is through our correspondences. I am not on any other social media (other than a blog)
ReplyDeleteApologies, Beatrice, for my tardy response. It's really good to find other people who keep in touch and who have also made friends in Blogland.
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