Vortexia's Secret

it's weird how life changes. it's really strange seeing the decisions you and others make. the thought process, what's important, where their (and your) priorities lie. human interaction on the whole is interesting.

some friends would never pick up the phone to initiate a call if possible. some people say "let's talk" or "let's get together" with no intention of following through. some people value friendships first and foremost. others familly. still others have another top choice, like their job. what's odd is that neither choice is really factually any better than the others. you have your personal opinion on it and maybe your value system indicates one superior option, but none are irrefutably better than the others.

friends are the most important thing to me. when i consider moving or making a drastic change for a job, i think about my friends. i think about missing them and missing out and losing touch. i wonder if i can find new friends in the new city who are as amazing as the friends i have now. i wonder how much i would really get to visit, and how often those visits would line up with theirs.

of course this can't be the point that makes or breaks a move or a job opportunity. but i consider it heavily. in some ways, i feel ambivalent about it. i don't like the idea of becoming one of those people who lives their life in the same place where they grew up. our family has always grown up in one place and then left it for another. i have done that to some extent and don't plan to move back to the same city where i was raised. but i kind of made the safe choice. the city that's just an easy daytrip away from home. in some ways i feel lucky... i can see my friends whenever they come into town. but that happens less now. i have noticed that after the first year or two living in a different place, the visits home grow more and more infrequent. i guess the new place truly becomes home and the old home just becomes another trip.

it's funny how life changes. for all the planning that we do, we really don't plan enough for that. we figure that we can see our friends whenever we want. we don't consider each others' long-term plans. as an example, it just dawned on me that one of the friends i made this past year in school will be leaving soon. she only came to this area for school and will probably never return once she's done. we hung out when we happened to get together, but we ought to start making plans to catch up and make the most of this last month. i know it sounds cheesy... more like what you would do if your significant other were moving away... but i think it's just as relevant to do this with friends.

i feel like i fall out of touch with friends too easily. with most of them i am lucky that we can catch up fairly easily, but after so many years, you start to lose that ability. i think i need to realize, also, that my friends are already scattered. if i move from here, i would be farther from my incredible friends from school. but we are all close friends, so there is really no reason that we couldn't have a mini reunion every time i came back into town. if i move to one potential area, i would be closer to a couple friends, farther from several others. i would have to move to a pretty far-flung part of the country to not have any friends there. bump up the minutes on the cell phone plan, mark out a few evenings each week, and stay committed to keeping in touch.

no idea where this came from. life can be kind of funny like that. none of this was about anyone in particular and was not a plea for any of you to reconnect or anything. no ploys. no guilt. just random thoughts.