Just a thought about friends

I may have mentioned it before, but I have sort of been meaning to blog specifically about this particular subject. Before I moved away, I had a group of friends that I hung out with, some were roommates in various stages, others just friends I had had for a number of years. We went out in varied groups, sometimes everyone, sometimes just a few together. Right before I left they threw a pretty big party for me at a local dance club (it wasn't for dancing while we were there) (I am not a big dancer). There were quite a few people there, and it was great fun, and afterward I was pretty ready to move.

While in Cancun living my adventure, I kept in contact with a lot of people - not regularly or daily or anything like that, but enough. Their lives go on and so did mine so it was no big deal at all. I never thought about it. Then when I came back, I made some lame attempts to meet up with a few of them, but nothing really major. I came back to having to find a job and a place to live and deal with the cold and get my car ready and all that crap. I was busy. Plus I was used to going out via taxi all the time - the thought of going out in a CAR to DRINK was just stupid. I mean, around here it's REALLY stupid. And I knew that before I left, but upon my return it wasn't even worth thinking about.

Consequently, the friends I used to hang out with 2 years ago are pretty much not my friends anymore (well, one or two maybe are) (Now I joke about that going away party saying it was was actually for them). I rarely go out at night, haven't drank but a handful of times (when I am not vacationing in Cancun), and am rapidly depleting my Netflix list. I am SO okay with that. So much has changed in SO little time, and it's funny how I have always known that you can never go back, but am still surprised at how MUCH changed in a little over one year.

Now the friends that I cherish the most live 3000 miles away from me. I have seen them less and talk to them more. I think we have more in common and then I can't figure out what that is. Someone told me fairly recently after I got back that I had changed, that I was soooo different - I don't think I am, but you know what they say about perception.

I know my priorities have shifted and I think that's a good thing. I get some grief about it from some people, but geez who cares. I can't even count how many people who asked me "How was it?" then grew increasingly more uncomfortable as the response extended beyond one sentence. It's like asking "How are you?" and not wanting anything more than "Fine" as a response. I don't expect much from coworkers - but I expect a lot more from people I considered to be my friends.

Very recently, however, one of those friends approached me with a situation that was very intricate and that she has been dealing with for a long while now. In explaining it to me, an effort to sort of bring me up to speed, she predisclosed that she didn't want me to think that she was rushing her solution to the situation, and that she didn't want me to think, I guess, badly about the decision made. I told her, You know, I haven't talked to you in a long time, and I have no idea what you have been going through in the last 2 years, so how can I judge the situation at all, let alone the outcome. I told her that if and when she needed, I would be there for her. That's what friends do for friends, no matter what has passed. That's what I want - not that I always get it, but we shouldn't do things just for the anticipation of what we might get in return.

So in closing, I guess perhaps I have changed, in that my expectations are less, my priorities are better, and that change has made me into the kind of person that most of the people I knew before my move to Cancun don't really like to hang around with. If that is the case, then I don't really want to hang around with them, either.