Well, the waiting is over and the action of getting everything taken care of for the move is upon me. My biggest packing worry is finding another piece of luggage, which should be relatively easy, and washing my clothes before the final day packing. Other than that, I've been thinking a lot of the relationships that will be changing.
I've never been very good at keeping communication going with friendships and family, but I like to think I've been slowly and steadily getting better over the years. I call people back more often, I try to keep in touch through various forms of media, and I even text people back within about a day. These are fantastic strides in my effort to think of other people, which I hope can keep going when the bulk of my friends and family are quite a few states away.
One thing I've had to face recently is the reality of how I've made people feel by unintentionally ignoring them. See, I've found in a couple friendships that I've been putting in a lot more effort than the other person. It can look a lot of different ways; mostly it's little things, like me being the only one making phone calls or plans. Sure the other person will return my calls (sometimes), and they might call to make a change to the plans, but for the most part I'm the one doing the reaching out. To add a little salt to the wound, they'll usually comment on some funny Facebook post or send a trivial text message right as I've decided I'll just give up altogether.
I've said goodbye to one of these friendships, and it felt good to say that I wasn't going to be putting effort into something that wasn't really appreciated and definitely not reciprocated. It made me wonder if maybe some of the blame lay with me. I could have chosen to extend my energy towards those people who were waiting with acceptance and giving hearts, but instead I chose to waste it on people who didn't care as much for me as I thought they did. It makes me feel more than a bit guilty as I sit here and think of relationships lost because I was the one that seemed not to care.
I've decided that from now on, I'm going to try showing as much love as I can to those people who've shown love to me. I'll become a letter writing, emailing, phone calling machine - one that hopefully receives letters, emails, and phone calls as well as putting them out there. I think it will be a good start in getting back to the me that had a big heart and was able to love "even the least of these." I expect that after a time my learned cynicism towards most of mankind will fade away, and I'll be able to replace it with a hefty dose of mercy and grace for my fellow man. And this is just one part of the growing and learning that I hope and believe will happen when I find my way out of this rut and get down to the real business of living.
Now if only I can figure out how to communicate with tact...I'll be golden. Oh, and that friend that you just thought of who you haven't attempted to contact, give them a call - it'll make you feel good.
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