Welcome to Long Time Friends

I admit, I've been a bit busy lately. Which is primarily why I haven't written anything in a few weeks. As time marches on, I've found that my free time is sucked up faster and faster. It can be hard to take a moment to write a blog post, let alone have a social life. 

I mentioned a few weeks (or maybe months) ago that I'd joined an art group. They meet every other week at one of the nearby libraries. It's nice and, though I'm starting to get to know the regulars, new people come each week. These are still fairly surface level acquaintances. Maybe one day, I'll have a solid group like the writer's groups I attended in New Jersey, but for now I'm content.

It's a little repetitive of me to say that making friends as an adult is hard. When I was in school, I was forced into social situations. Work is now the only full day equivalent, but there's a barrier there that didn't exist before I graduated. Schools have a defined structure between students and teachers, a structure that becomes blurred once entering the workforce. 

That doesn't mean one can't have friends at work. It just means that it's usually good to have some distance in your relationships with people at work. 

Friendships can be made or broken by distance - both physical and emotional. 

Friendship before social media.

Mostly it's the physical distance that dulls the emotional connection. I had a great group of high school friends (some of whom I do still keep in touch with), but as we all moved away from home, we stopped talking regularly. Without the constant communication, I now feel emotionally distant from them and am uncertain if my memory of them matches who they are now (and vice versa). 

Then there are the friends I have who seem to always be my friend no matter the physical distance. I have a couple of friends I might not see for years and only shoot the occasional text to, but put me in a room with them and it's like we haven't been a apart for a day.

Then again, this could be a perception only from my end. It does take two people to maintain a relationship. 

Not too long ago, my family lost one of our long time friends. My dad met this friend in the early 80s (it might have been the 70s, but I can't be certain). This was well into their adult lives. This family friend was close enough, that he became an honorary uncle when I came around about 20 years later and was my sibling's godparent. 

My dad and his friend were from two different generations (my dad is a Boomer, while this friend was from the Silent Generation). I was friends with his grandkids rather than his kids. This friendship lasted over four decades, multiple states, and a couple of different countries. They even did become work colleagues for a bit.

My honorary uncle taught me how to ride a bike, cut down a Christmas tree, and drive a standard stick shift convertible. He even let me borrow that convertible for a summer while I was a nanny. There was no air conditioning, I sometimes had to pump air in the tires using a bike pump, and the gas gage would start to swivel at the 1/2 tank mark. My friends called that car Butch. It's one of my fondest memories of my uncle. 

Sometimes friendships withstand the test of time and distance. I have a few I hope last that long (hopefully longer). 

I miss my uncle. In some childish way, I thought he'd be around forever.

But I'm happy for the long time friendship he had with my family. 

Until next week. 

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