Keeping Up and Letting Go

For those of you who have moved before, you know the situation well. I describe this situation as the Keeping Up vs. Letting Go. It occurs when you leave a group of people, for example coworkers, classmates, neighbors, or even a whole community. Due to the new displacement, you find yourself trying to comb through your former group and find those people with whom you'll always keep up. The others, who may have just been a part of your world out of convenience, get let go. Those in the "Keep Up" category get phone calls, emails, Facebook messages, and visits in person. Those in the "Let Go" category either disappear immediately, or after a series of successively shorter and less frequent calls, messages, or texts. However, usually, there remains a category of people that you never want to let go of but don't keep up with. This has become my expertise: building a group of people in my little world with whom I never want to part, but still make a minimal effort to keep up.

Situation: Going to college

Team Keep Up: 5-10 on a very good/talkative/nostalgic day

Team Let Go: unfortunately many

Team (please don't ever let go!... but I probably still won't ever call you): ... unfortunately many

The reason I have decided to reflect on all of this was sparked by my good friend Allison coming to visit. She is on Team Keep Up, which is demonstrated by the fact that on her 4 days off for the whole summer, she payed me a visit in good ol' St. Louis. We were in the process of cooking dinner, and my good friend/roommate called (important detail: I have failed to make any contact with her all summer). Needless to say, I was very excited to hear from her. Unfortunately, I had spaghetti boiling, sauce simmering, and the table was set... so I had to hang up prematurely so as to attend to my dinner with Allison. Not even five minutes later, my very best friend from the ripe age of 8 months old gave me a buzz. What a coincidence! We hadn't talked in a shamefully long time, even though she's the Captain of Team Keep Up. We've always been best friends, and always will be. However, the spaghetti was just being strained, the sauce was simmered, and the table was still set... so I had to hang up prematurely so as to attend to my stomach and company.

I found myself surprised at the amount of catching up that I had to pass up, only in order to catch up with the friend in my presence. It was almost silly how two good friends, neither of which I'd talked to recently, called me in the same 20 minute window of time. It just-so-happened to be the 20 minutes during which I was eating dinner with a good friend from high school.

I get overwhelmed frequently at the amount of people I have to keep up with, and I tend to get scared away from it altogether as a result. This is why I have such a large population in my "Please Don't Ever Let Go!.... but I still probably won't call you" category. Keeping up doesn't happen easily, and letting go happens, too often, unwillingly.

Hopefully, in time, my "teams" will even out.