sometimes things surprise me when they really shouldn't. lately i've been having to learn to connect with friends again. the thing is, sometimes time and distance seperates you, and sometimes it's just a lack of effort which affects friendship.
that's when you have to learn to rebuild, sometimes affecting the structure or intensity of the relationship that you once had. awkwardness where there used to be comfortable silence, learning to read gestures and speech inflections when in the past words wouldn't have even been needed.
i went out to dinner with a really old friend of mine tonight. we used to play together when we were little, until she moved to vancouver. she came back to ottawa to do her master's degree at the university of ottawa and my parents have had her over for dinner several times while i've been away at school. she was over again before they left for china and suggested we get together while they were gone. so we went for dinner tonight and the conversation was amazing. it's really surreal to think that we used to be such good friends, losing contact and thinking i'd never really see her again, and then going out for dinner and resdicovering the connection that we used to share.
the thing is, sometimes i become complacent in my friendships, letting people contact me when they have time, thinking that they're busy and they'll call me when they can, or want to make contact. and i honestly believe that sometimes it's necessary, that people need to see that friendship goes more than one way and that they need to contact me every once in a while. but sometimes i can forget that it works the other way around for me too, that i need to keep contact with ones i love or else regret the regression in our relationship. so i'm hoping to rebuild some less than stellar relationships; i just have to remember to be patient and not push, or expect too much.
