Keeping up with old friends

My friend Katie and I recently had a chat about how hard it is to keep up with old friends. Both of us have made good friends at different stages as we moved around for college, grad school, jobs, etc. The friends we've made have done the same and thus, we have friends all over the world. While technology and social media has made it a lot easier to keep track of childhood and college friends, the distance still makes it difficult to maintain friendships. We all have limited budgets and vacation days, so we rarely get to see the friends that live in faraway places.

Furthermore, when you look at people our parents' ages (baby boomers in their 50s and 60s), it turns out that many of their good friends now are the parents of their children's friends. So we came to the dreary conclusion - does that mean that we haven't even met our lifelong BFFs yet? What happened to the friends they had before the kids came along? What a terribly depressing and sobering thought. I have some great friends now! Am I going to lose them if I have kids and they don't, or vice versa? I know my rambling is just based on anecdotal evidence and this isn't any absolute indication of what will happen in the future. But it's sad to know that some friendships will inevitably fade away - and if I'm being really honest here, some already have.

I don't mean to be so depressing - I'm in a contemplative, reflective mood today.

Santorini, Greece, July 2011