When You Feel Like A Crappy Friend, Remember This

Once upon a time, friendship was easy. Well, maybe not easy. But easier.

You saw your friends at school. You played together at recess. You rode bikes on the weekend.

Later you talked on the phone at night and met each other at parties.

Even when life got busier and more complicated, friendship was as simple as walking across the hall or meeting at the corner bar for a few drinks.

Once upon a time, friendship didn’t mean spending months planning a weekend away only to have plans get derailed because a kid got sick or a pet died. It didn’t mean living across the country from each other. It didn’t mean that, even though you lived in the same town, you could go weeks without hanging out because you were both so busy with work and kids and whatnot that your schedules never seemed to match up.

Once upon a time, friendship was easy. Easier.

I’m not gonna lie, I’ve been missing my friends lately, and I sometimes feel like a crappy friend. I don’t call or text enough. I don’t get out for girls night out, much less a weekend away. I often don’t feel like I fit in with the mom cliques. And sometimes after a long week, all I want to do is hunker down with my family.

Life is filled with seasons, and this is just the season that I — and so many of us — are in right now. We’re consumed with our family and jobs. We’re running to a million activities on the weekend and constantly feel like we’re being pulled in a bazillion different directions. We feel like we’re trying to do all the things and kinda sucking at all of them. And our friendships — even the very best ones — somehow keep falling to the bottom of the priority list.

But you know what? Maybe instead of beating ourselves up about it, we should just cut ourselves some slack. Our real friends — the ones who were there for us when friendship was easy — are still here for us when friendship is hard. The friendship isn’t any less; it just looks different.

Friendship looks like 2 a.m. text messages and emailed gifs that need no explanation. It looks like going weeks without talking, and then talking on the phone for 2 hours. It looks like showing up and being there for the important things, even though you can’t be there for everything. It means cutting each other some slack when friendship feels hard and knowing that, even though we don’t see each other or talk as much as we’d life, the bonds are still there.

Because friendship might be harder, but it’s also stronger.