Fewer Bare Walls

I hung some pictures today. It's true that soon we will arrive at the one-year anniversary of our move to Melle. It's taken awhile to get those pictures up. I guess that when you rent a house you pay attention to how many holes you put in the walls. Add to that some laziness and procrastination, and you have an 11-month delay in picture hanging.

I love pictures.

I love to look at them, and to be reminded of places I've been, things I've done, people I've known.

They say that Americans and the French view friendship differently. That the French tend to have fewer friends, but their friendships are deeper and last longer. That Americans have tons of friends, but their relationships tend to be shallower and more "disposable."

Of our closest friends here in Melle, one is Thomas's best friend from middle school. Another is a good friend of his from high school. Another he met when he started college. The "newcomer" to the list he's known for at least a decade. It's sometimes funny, sometimes exasperating to hear them share inside jokes that are often 20 years old. It's neat to see how comfortable they are together. You can afford to be real with someone who's seen you at your awkward, early-teenage stage and still likes you.

Maybe it's culture, maybe it's just geography, but I'm only still in touch with one person from pre-university school years. And even that contact had about a 5-year gap. If we're back in touch, we probably owe it mostly to our parents, who exchanged numbers for us. I realize that I'm slowly losing contact with my friends from college. Even with free phone calls to the US, it's still hard to find time to keep in touch. When we're back in the States, we often have such a crammed-full schedule that it's hard to share the kind of time that allows friendships to grow.

One shared dinner every two years is not enough to keep a friendship alive.

So, what do I do? I desperately want to keep in touch with the friends I love. Friends who, even if they missed out on the pimple-and-high-hair stage at least date from the confused-single-college-student stage.

I could always make a New Year's resolution to keep in touch better. But, we all know what happens to New Year's resolutions.

I could resign myself to letting people fade out of my life, one by one.

That's not an acceptable option, either.

Somewhere, somehow, there is a solution. Maybe this blog is an attempt at finding it.