"Outta sight, Outta mind"...Part 2-People

Here’s another example of the “Outta sight, Outta mind" phenomenon. This one relates to people: Friends, family, acquaintances that you have lost touch with for one reason or another. Either you’re no longer in the same postal district or some life changing occurrence has caused you to no longer have as much in common and therefore, not as much interest, I guess. Or it could be just plain laziness.

I hate losing touch with people. I am a firm believer in fate. I believe that every single person that comes into your life leaves you with something. They’ve come into your life for a reason. It could be to remind you of something, teach you something, or just touch a part of you in a way that stays with you. I like thinking about that when I’ve met someone, which resulted in some sort of memorable experience or feeling. And when they’re no longer a part of my life for whatever reason, I mourn that loss.

I am also one of those people that believe it takes two people to maintain a friendship, just like anything else, it requires effort from both sides and I do get hurt when I feel like I’m the one making all the effort. I decide that’s it, I quit, I’m tired of making all the attempts to keep in touch…but then I’ll give it the old college try, one more time. Why? Because I don’t want to let it go, I don’t want to mourn another loss like that.

I will admit I’m guilty of neglect too. There’ have been times where I experienced that loss of interest because of the distance apart or because I felt we just didn’t have as much in common. Another reason was accountability. There was a time when I was experiencing something in my life that I felt a very good friend of mine couldn’t relate to and would judge me for so I avoided that conflict by cutting her out. I regret that to this day and now there have been attempts to rekindle that friendship, even after all these years. It worked; we have been keeping in touch on a regular basis, even though I’m a few time zones away.

The thought that I really wanted to share about “Outta sight, Outta mind” today was that there are certain people in our lives that we don’t expect to let us down , but they do. Friends that you really thought would keep in touch with you and really attempt to keep you a part of their lives sometimes don’t. This really surprised me, but it’s true. Maybe some people are just not good at the long distance thing. I live in another country. Or as I said before, maybe it’s laziness. I don’t want to sound like I’m playing the blame game, like I said, I have been just as guilty, but when it came to certain friendships that I really didn’t want to lose, I had to just accept that sometimes you just have to be disappointed. With age comes wisdom and with that comes certain harsh realities that you know are there, but you are reluctant to acknowledge. Those friendships are still there, but different. I feel the loss, but have made peace with it. It’s sort of like, yep, OK. It is what it is, I accept it.
Ce la Vie, such is life…….