i'll be there for you

I'm worried I've become a crummy friend.

I'm not being hard on myself, and I'm not hoping/asking for an outpouring of comments about how that is or is not true. I'm just saying.

I'm worried I've become a crummy friend.

I think it might be one of those Growing Pains things. Not a thing like Leonardo DiCaprio on Growing Pains was a thing. I mean an actual, awkward growing-up-is-hard-to-do thing.

I get that people grow up and maybe grow out of each other. It's not always like you wake up one day and when you think about your BFF, you're just kind of over it. I mean, I guess sometimes that happens but usually people just go to college, people move away, people get married, people's priorities shift. That doesn't mean your friendship sucks or ever did suck. It just means growing up sucks. And I think I've been doing a lot of growing up in the last few years.

I'm quick to say, that hasn't sucked. In fact, 95% of growing up over the last two years hasn't sucked at all. But I think the part that has sucked is my seeming inability to be a good, constant friend as we all grow up and out and on and upward. My natural affinity for social events has taken somewhat of a stunning hit ever since I started being a Grown Up with an 8-5 job and actual responsibilities to attend to. I'm not hanging out like I used to. I'm not texting like I used to. I'm not even Facebooking like I used to. It's weird. I'm not used to it. It's a smidgen lonely if I think about it for too long. So that part kind of sucks.

I look at the new friendships that I develop lately-- the ones that seem to take the places of others. I don't think I've lost friends necessarily, at least not completely. But they're gone in a way, replaced by others, and the weirdest part is that the new friends in my Grown Up Life are actual Grown-Ups. Like, older than me. Like, filled with world experience. Like, who go to bed at a boring decent hour like I've started to. I look at my new friends and they are starting to look like the friends I remember my parents having when I was small-- friends who you maybe see only sometimes, and definitely not until 2AM.

This weekend I was able to fly for a few days back into the land of College Friends, shopping and talking and quoting and adventuring and drinking large cups of Diet Coke in the early hours of the morning. It was nice. It made me glad and a little sentimental. Of course then it also made me thoughtful and fretful about what am I missing? now that I'm apparently ventured off into Grown Up land where it's a whole lot less carefree and involves remarkably fewer meals at Denny's. It was fun. Grown Up land isn't quite so fun. Even Grown Up Friends aren't so fun-- at least, they're not the same fun, and the only commonality between Fun Friends and Grown Up Friends in my life is me so what's my deal? All my Fun Friends seem to still be Fun and they're all still Fun Friends together, which is not to say I'm not Fun or that my fun Grown Up Friends aren't Fun, but why am I not a Fun Friend with the other Fun Friends? The only thing I can think is that somewhere between college and now, I have turned away from the Fun.

Which is clearly why I'm worried I've become crummy friend.

I want to resolve to make more time for the friends I'm worried I've lost. I want them to know I still love them and that I can still be Fun. I don't want my job or my responsibilities to define me or my time. I need to take a deep breath and relax about my schedule because people always matter way more than most other things.

I'm sorry if I've seemed a little out of the loop recently. I don't mean to be. I love you. I want to be your friend. I want to make you red velvet cookies with white chocolate chips and eat nachos and laugh and laugh and laugh. I want to text you. I want you to be in my life.

And someday, let's all hang out in the fountain at the JFSB at BYU like the very funnest friends I know: