"WHAT WOULD YOU DO?" MONDAY (#9)

Well...I don't know about all of you but I had a respectable weekend. I managed phone conversations with Pete, Derek, and Spider this weekend. During our chatting we talked about all getting together sometime in the coming year for a vacation...perhaps somewhere off the coast of Florida, perhaps D.C., perhaps New York, perhaps somewhere in a mountain cabin off in Tennessee. Somehow I think we'll make it happen. I also got my daily text message updates from that darlin' but crazy Cajun from Luz'iana, BrettCajun. In singles and doubles, he lost in the first round of the Winner's bracket but came back strong in the Loser's bracket to make it to both finals. Unfortunately his legs just had no more energy in them. Now Bretster, didn't I tell you in the past you needed to pick up the cardio. Just kidding bud! Great effort on your part.

Anyway, I have digressed a bit from today's post. It's Monday and it's time again for my "WHAT WOULD YOU DO?" post. Today's post is:

If you saw that a long-time and/or very good friendship was beginning to wane, what would you do?

I realize that this question could be approached in several ways but I am going to leave it stand as is so that you can interpret and respond to it as it applies to you. I actually have had several long-time friendships that go back to my high school days, diminish over the years. For me, it has been a heart-wrenching trip. Most of you probably have a good sense of how important my friends are to me and how I value those that are still apart of my life. Anyhoo, the friends that I was just referring to were both good high school buddies and one went on to be my room mate in college freshman year. They became part of my family extension. As we graduated from college, work seemed to dominate our lives. Then my college room mate married. We didn't do much together after that and my contact with him became limited to the holidays. Even then the contact became one-sided...me always initiating it.

My other friend, lived closed by, and ran his own deli. It was extremely successful. He was perhaps my closest friend. That changed when I moved from the San Francisco side of the Bay Area over to the East Bay. I was about a 45 minute to an hour drive from him. Our contact became more of a phone call escapade. He put extremely long hours into his deli and eventually moved and commuted from Woodlands to his work location. Lets just say that Woodlands is about an hour and a half drive to San Francisco. He had to go another twenty minutes from there to get to his deli. Phone calls became infrequent and we were down to a Christmas card exchange. Again, this diminished to a one-sided contact at Christmas...yes, me sending the card. I finally got a card one Christmas out of the blue. It was a personalized photo card and right smack on the photo was a picture of him and his new bride from four months earlier. He talked about how happy he was and also about what my dad used to tell him on finding a woman (all this coming from a friend who did not even show up at either my dad's wake or funeral). My best friend, even though the communication had waned, did not even give me the courtesy of a call to tell me he was even engaged (I would have been perfectly fine not being a part of the wedding given the time lapse...it was just the lack of letting me know of the change.). At the very moment I finished reading his Christmas card, I let go of the friendship. I have not corresponded since...he knows where I am currently. So if he desires to reach me, I welcome it then. But I think we all grow tired after awhile when someone can't even exchange a simple, "Hello. How are you doing?" by means of their own volition.

My answer to the question then of 'what would I do?' is: as long as I sense there is still a viable connection between myself and my friend, I will make every effort to maintain that friendship, initiating calls, trying to set up some fun gathering event, whatever. But if there is no reasonable reciprocation, then I chose now to devote my efforts to other new, evolving friendships, to family, and to personal endeavors. Mind you, I don't hold animosity or a grudge against the friend. I just recognize that life is too short, and sometimes everyone has to refocus there energies in areas where they are welcomed. Make sense?

Hopefully I haven't hit you with another heavy topic on a Monday morning like last week, but you know, the mind needs some good stimulation every now and then. So what better way to get the brain jumpstarted?!