At midnight last New Year’s Eve, I realised I had all but lost touch with some of the most important friends I’ve ever had. Perhaps it was the champagne, but I suddenly felt overcome with sadness as I thought of all the people I hadn’t had contact with that year – the girls I went to university with; the couples I spent my 20s with before moving out of London; and Mary, my bestie, who moved home to the United States several years ago.
I miss you so much
Beyond that glass of bubbly, I think the cusp of a new year draws our intentions into sharp focus. As I reflected on what had changed that year – a redundancy, a difficult house move and the sudden death of a friend – I found myself wanting to hold ever tighter to the things that had stayed the same. In particular, I wanted to reach out to old friends, whose presence in my life is an anchor when life is challenging.
In those first few minutes of the new year, I promised myself I’d stop saying, ‘We must catch up’ while knowing we probably wouldn’t. This year, we would!
What I didn’t realise, however, was how difficult it would be. For the first three months of the year, I found it easier to make grand gestures than to do the deeper work of finding time for my mates. I booked a work trip around the chance to spend 24 hours hanging out with my beloved American friend. Although we both valued the stolen time together, I realised, a few weeks later, that I wasn’t in touch with her any more frequently than before. Little had actually changed.
This story is from the February 2020 edition of Psychologies.
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This story is from the February 2020 edition of Psychologies.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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