I'll (try harder) to be there for youuuuuuu!

I LOGGED on to my e-mail earlier this week, and there it was. An e-mail from my best friend, tagged “I’m so sorry”.

My best friend who has been my best friend since we were four. My best friend whose birthday is five days before mine, who has the same middle name as me, the same first initial in her name and likes the same cheesy 80s/early 90s pop music as me.

My best friend whom I hadn’t spoken to or had any contact with in a full 10 months.

She lives over the other side of the world and because of work/home circumstances (which are private so I won’t go into here), we fell out of touch. There was no row, no bad feeling, no argument, the contact just dwindled away.

To begin with I continued to text and e-mail but then realised I hadn’t had a reply in days and days…then weeks and weeks until one day it struck me that it had been about three months since I’d heard from her. I kept meaning to call. I kept meaning to ring her folks here in Ireland. I kept meaning to e-mail again and ask if she was alright. But I didn’t. I figured if she wanted or needed to contact me, she would, which looking back now wasn’t sensible at all, but hindsight is 20/20. And so almost a year passed.

When I got the e-mail on Monday, my first reaction was “oh, so you’ve surfaced have you? Ha! We’ll see about that”, but then I read the mail and heard about the horrible time she’s been having for the past year and my defiance crumbled.

It turned out that to begin with she was literally working 24 hours a day, then some personal stuff happened as well as a huge work upheaval so she was up to her neck. And then she, like me, realised it had been months and months since she’d heard from me…and thought it was too late to contact me again, that I’d somehow be annoyed or upset with her. Again, looking back she now realises how silly that was….but at the time it seemed perfectly normal.

It appears there was fault on both sides and some insane reasoning that both of us would be upset with the other for not being in contact (after all these years, we let a few unanswered emails and texts come between us, I’m black and blue from kicking myself) but thankfully it’s been resolved now as she had the courage to apologise.

Sorry is not a word that comes easily to me. I hate to admit to being in the wrong and if at all possible I’ll avoid apologising to anyone (apart from that ‘sorry sorry’ thing you do when you step on someone’s foot on the bus) but I’m about to say it now. If you’re reading K, I’m sorry too. I’m sorry I didn’t make more of an effort to call you, contact your parents to check on you, even fly out to see you. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you through the awfulness, when you really needed a friend and I’m sorry that I almost let 22 years of friendship slip away. It won’t happen again!

Just so you know, it is never too late to call me, or e-mail me or text me and I’ll never be upset with you or annoyed with you (except maybe if you start a war or something…and even then I’d probably just roll my eyes and help you plan your strategy) and I will always be your friend. Always.

We met up last night for drinks and dinner (Luigi Malone’s mmmmmm) and it was wonderful. We had so much to catch up on (I didn’t know she’d landed a fantastic new job, she didn’t know I’d had my colon removed, that kinda thing!) and just chatted for hours. We’re meeting again tomorrow night to go for dinner and the theatre and I’m really looking forward to it and hopefully she is too.

I’m making a New Year’s resolution today to stay in contact with her no matter what and I think this is one resolution I’ll be happy to keep.

And the moral of the story is…go through your address book or your contacts list in your e-mail and get back in touch with those friends you haven’t heard from in a while. Trust me, they’ll be touched, relieved and delighted. I know I was.

Pic: www.popentertainment.com