No. 48 in No. 34

No. 48 - Call someone I haven't spoken to in a year


While I was in San Antonio last week (No. 34,  kind of) I had a few hours to kill. 

From Kindergarten midway through to Second grade I lived in San Antonio.  I had a best friend there that I hated to leave when we moved back to the Houston area.

This is where I was going to insert a picture of said friend,

 but I can't find the cute elementary age pictures.

The Junior High school pics are best left in the album, unshared.

And I was really, really mad that we had to move back to Houston. For the longest time, all the way through Elementary school and most likely all the way through Junior High (hard to say because Junior High was a wasteland of three years that I have wiped from my memory), I felt ripped off that I had to leave my best friend and my great neighborhood and my fun city of San Antonio.

So after the memorial service that was the reason I went to S.A. in the first place, I drove by my old house, through my old neighborhood and by my best friend's house. And on a whim I decided to call her to see if she was free to visit.

Home from 1960 to 1962

Thank you, Apple, for Contacts and iCloud because without them I would not have had her phone number.

The last time I spoke to this friend was about 16 years ago when she was pregnant with her fourth girl and I had just had my first girl. She needed a baby name and she really liked my daughter's, so she called to see if I would mind. I loved the idea of sharing the name.   My daughter had been due on my friend's birthdate and her upcoming daughter was due on MY birthdate, surely a sign that they should have the same name. And while neither one of them hit their due dates, they do have the same first name.

The adorable baby with the great name. 

Now she is as blonde as they get.

Anyway, I called and we chatted.  She was out the door to a soccer game; my youngest was at home about to play a soccer game herself. Friday night in Texas...but also a parallel in our lives.  So I didn't have long on the phone but it was so wonderful to hear her voice and amazing that after such a long time, her voice still sounds to me like it did in First Grade.  Ok, maybe a tiny bit more grown up, but basically the same. And we chatted easily as if we had spoken the week before.

On a roll, I caught up with another friend in S.A., a one time room mate of my brother's, and friend of mine.  I had not spoken to this person in easily 30 years. We had reconnected over Facebook after the death of my brother. We chatted for the entire time it took me to drive from San Antonio to Austin and it was an easy and fun conversation covering the past and present. And it was as if we had been speaking to each other all along over the years.

The uptake on this is: even if you have moved or moved on or just made a change in direction, the people that you really liked in the first place are probably people you will still really like. There was never any animosity between any of us, we just had separated over the years, lost touch, whatever. But with a couple of phone calls I felt like I had long lost friends back in my corner.
And everyone can use an extra friend or two.
At least, I think so.

So call someone. I didn't even set out to do this as part of my "things to do". It just came to me as something I wanted to do. I wasn't even thinking of No. 48 on the list. 


Caveat: If you haven't spoken to someone in years because there is a restraining order, or they were once your friend and then they went bat-shit crazy- DON'T call.
Some relationships are best left as they are....gone and forgotten.


No. 48 is done.