Be True to Thy Self

I have a confession to make. Most of you who are my friends will already know this confession. But here it is.

I am a bad friend. I rarely return phone calls, I randomly send emails, I make plans and then cancel at the last minute, I sometimes don't cover my mouth when I sneeze, the list could go on and on.

I would like to say that all this bad friend etiquette started when I had kids, but there are too many of you out there who know differently. For a while it was masked because I lived in Victoria and actually sent out Christmas cards to a whole host of people. Little did they know that one Christmas card was me running at full friendship capacity. It just looked good because I didn't live in the same town.

The weird thing is that I genuinely like / treasure all of my friends. I think of you guys often and wonder how you are with your families and careers and lives. If I called or emailed every time I thought about you guys then I would be bordering on stalking..... well maybe not. But there would be more than one or two calls a year.

How did this happen? Am I lazy? Is the Metro Vancouver to blame? Are we simply too thinly spread between working full time, parenting, random acts of exercise and commuting? Throw in a 30 minute drive to the old stomping grounds and it is kaput?

There is no excuse. I am not an artist, I am not involved in any team sports (they would kick me out for lack of participation), I am not actively involved in any sort of time consuming hobbies (scrapbooking 1x a month if I am lucky), I do not have any debilitating illnesses (unless you consider 3rd pregnancy in 5 years incapacitating) and I do not cook very much or bake. There is no reason for me not to eek out some time for my friends.

So here is to you - the friends who have hung in there and call even though I am criminally negligent. I enjoy all of our conversations and I value your input. The emails and random cards brighten my day.

I will do better!