Staying in touch

[gement]

The most important thing I got out of Tuesdays with Morrie was the idea of staying in touch with people you care about, which I am phenomenally bad at. I mean, really bad at it.

I got a wedding invitation, months ago, from a friend getting married in Ireland, this weekend. I still haven't replied, despite her asking very clearly for a reply, despite the return address, despite the inclusion of an e-mail address (which I already had memorized). Despite the fact she asked me to sing at her wedding.

Obviously, I can't swing a trip to Ireland right now. It's just not in my priorities. But a reply? What's wrong with me?

I have a friend with cancer who would be delighted if I could just get off my duff far enough to call her once a week. Once a freakin' week. I've called her maybe three times in the last six months.

I'm even worse about people whose contact info I can't keep track of, which is most of them. I have an e-mail address from my college, which I was pleased to see would last forever, so I could keep all my archives, and I wouldn't lose contact with people who didn't have any other means of contacting me.

I haven't checked that account in a year. I still have it. It just feels like too much hassle to check it. Too much hassle to talk to the people I most care about. WTF?

People who stay in good touch with their loved ones, and especially those of you who have had to learn the skill... Help me. Please.

Comments

[eeyorerin]

I think maybe you should think about the feelings and motivations accompanying your not doing these things in addition to taking steps to figure out ways in which you can keep in touch with others.

For me, I go in waves; sometimes I'm uncommunicative with everyone, and then I'll have bursts of communication with people. But what I try to do is remember events that are special to them (birthdays, anniversaries), and then, if I see something that reminds me of them, to try and acquire it and mail it to them for no good reason.

Maybe just set a goal of doing one keeping-in-touch thing a week? Start small.

[gement.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Erin.

Ugh. Motivations bad. I'm partly terrified people won't remember me or I'll bore them (HA). I'm partly remembering the ackwardness of getting back in touch with people, and the guilty feeling that I don't really have anything to say to them anymore, that our lives have nothing in common, and I really just wish they'd stop talking now... so of course my assumption is that they will feel the same way, see motivation 1.

And then motivation 2 makes me feel horribly self-centered, shallow, and bitchy.

[annissamazing]

I usually keep in touch with people via email or livejournal. Every once in a while I'll be sitting in my house and get the urge to call someone. I can't say that I'm good at keeping in touch. I can't even remember birthdays.

As long as you let me know how I can contact you, you won't lose touch with me. Or Stacey, btw, who says hi and would like to talk to you and will probably give you a call sometime soon.

Yay!

[gement.livejournal.com]

I'd call Stacey, I really would, but I don't have her number and she's in IRELAND. The chances of my actually catching her would be a joke.

I'm sorry I haven't called back since the day of the wedding. Due to timing things, there's about a two hour window between me arriving home from work and your bedtime, and I always forget. :(

Re: Yay!

[annissamazing]

Don't worry about it. Besides, if you called me now you'd just get a message saying I moved and my phone would be out of service until Thursday. I'll give you a call when I get settled in at my new place. :)

[morinon.livejournal.com]

Honestly, it's something I work hard at... Unless there's some habit I have that keeps me in contact with them, I tend to just slide. Nothing personal meant by it, I usually remember, "Hey, I should call/talk to/email so and so", but never when I have time to do so.

[ilmarinen.livejournal.com]

Eh, I have some friends who stress about this a lot--as in, people aren't being good enough "friends" if they fall out of touch. This is silly. Friendship is two way, and it does take effort, but it should never be a burden. I have lots of friends I don't talk to for months at a time, and then we just pick-up where we left off. Keeping in touch is hard.

[gement.livejournal.com]

I completely agree. I'm talking mostly about YEARS, and people that I don't expect to ever contact again unless I do something to change that, or grandparents I've never voluntarily written to, or friends who just might possibly be dying that I probably should get more time with... you know. In case.

And I'm talking about feeling a complete loss of connection.

[capnexposition.livejournal.com]

As someone who also has a hard time doing things I probably should, I find scheduling time helps. I schedule a small portion of every day for answering my various correspondance with people, modifying the schedule week by week if need be. I'm not saying you should do this daily, but I'm willing to bet that putting a half an hour or an hour aside one day a week to correspond with people by e-mail, maybe a half hour or hour another day to call people, etc, would help. It helps me.

[gement.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I think scheduling an appointment with myself to do that would probably help a great deal.

[plantae.livejournal.com]

I'm really just thirding Erin's comment. One thing that helped me: I got a calander and an address book. When I get a new bit of contact info, it goes into the address book. Not onto bits of paper, just the book, with a mo/year note so I know how accurate the information is. And dates (like birthdays) go onto the calander. So I can flip to (say) October, and see that my Mom and Grandma have birthdays then, and I should probably write a card or call. (Side benefit: I can now plan more than a week in advance. :)

The other thing I found useful for just random keeping in touch with my grandparents, is a stack of postcards. Cheaper than a letter, short (I don't have much to say, anyway :), and pretty pictures. On the other hand, I ended up with a stack of free postcards, so this might work better for me than you. But an idea, none the less.

[gement.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Postcards. Postcards are good, and cheap, and can be prestamped, and can be sent to people and dropped in mailboxes easily. Postcards are good.