I am grateful for my hard-won friends. It hasn’t been easy to build such a strong network. Making friends gets harder as one gets older, plus many of us have had to figure out how to be a good friend through trial and error. I think my parents were part of a generation that tended to keep its personal relationships in-family. Anything that you needed emotional support for was too important to tell anyone you weren’t related to. That kind of thinking didn’t make for a good model for friendship.
But I’ve done it! Through careful effort and nurturing, I have some excellent friends. When I identify someone who seems like they might be a good friend, I ask them to coffee or lunch. If I have a dinner party coming up, I invite them there. If things go well, I don’t wait more than a few weeks to follow up with another invitation. I never wait for the other person to make the first move and I don’t wait for them to ask me back. If I haven’t heard from them for weeks or months, I contact them with an invitation to get together. I always assume that if they’ve faded out on me, it’s because they were too busy and need a reminder that I still like them. Of course, I can also take a hint if someone is really uninterested in being friends with me, but takes a good while for me to finally stop trying.
So maybe what I’m really grateful for is my perseverance and courage in solidifying friendships. I take the time and I let people know I want to stay in touch. I create social opportunities for us to see each other, such as my regular dinner parties. I’m grateful for all of it!
Oh. I get it.
For me, making friends is getting harder because the cemeteries are better guarded, modern embalming techniques tend to seriously inhibit the reactions necessary for cellular reanimation, and electrical rates are simply through the roof.