So I got Snape in a “which character would you be in Harry Potter?” online thing and I felt the description was fairly fitting. Then I started thinking about friendships and how they have come and gone in my life and the reasons why. I am not a tit for tat kind of friend. I don’t keep score. I do what I can when I can and don’t expect anything in return. That being said, when a friendship is at an 80%/20% ratio, you notice. Last year around this time I had several acquaintances that I was extending the branches of friendship to. I would take food when I had extra, invite them to dinner and always text to go do whatever. It worked for a while. It was nice. Then something one day caused me to take note and say to myself, wait a minute… I have never been brought food, or been invited to dinner or asked to go do whatever. I also KNEW that others had been extended invitations for dinners or “a girl’s day”. Now at the beginning there were some genuinely nice things that were done for me don’t get me wrong, but it had been a long time since I had been the recipient of anything that I had not initiated. It had been a while since I actually felt valued. My observant husband saw me slowly retreating and told me to completely withdraw and see if it was noticed. I did. I was really saddened when my absence was met with silence and not with a flurry of are you OK texts, or I haven’t seen you in a hot minute- you alive? One “friend” I haven’t spoken to in 5 months, the other 3. I started to wonder if I had done something to offend. I don’t think so… Finally I determined I hadn’t- I just wasn’t missed.

I get people become busy with the day to day (hello I have 3 kids!) but a text isn’t hard to send or a FB message doesn’t take hours to compose. There are tons of ways to communicate that don’t take a lot of time or energy but make a huge difference. In a way I am glad to now know these people were fair weathered. I am glad I only invested the time that I did and didn’t waste years but it still makes me a little sad to know I went at it with a different heart than the others did. It would have been nice to have had friends close by. I don’t open up often so that makes the sting burn a little more I think. So I am back to my little circle of girlies that may not be up the street but are always close by.