Growing up, we’re lucky to live close to some of our best friends. In grade school or high school, we’re lucky to have lived just a few doors down. And in college, we’re lucky to have lived just a couple steps away. But “out in the real world,” we’re not always so lucky. After high school, friends go to different colleges and after college, friends move to different cities and make new friends. Life happens and time slips away from us. We're lucky if we talk to each other once every month or so and really lucky if we see each other in passing at the airport on a business trip. Staying in touch with old friends is a job in itself. In light of this, the following is a letter to old friends and to a new year's resolution of staying in touch and being a better friend.

Dear friend(s),

I want to start off by saying that I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all the times I said I’d call and I didn’t. For all the times I said we’ll catch up over break and didn’t. For all the times I missed your birthday, your big break, your first job promotion. For all the times I wasn’t there for a special moment, a tough day, a night out with the crew. I’m sorry I missed all those things because the truth of the matter is I never used to miss those things. I used to be there. I used to be there when you just needed someone to talk to. I used to be there to celebrate your big day or your smallest triumph. I used to be there and now I’m not. And it’s not that I don’t want to be, its just…life. Life happened and we lost touch. You moved away or I went off to college or we got jobs and we grew apart. We stopped doing the little things. We stopped checking up on one another. We stopped sharing secrets. We stopped doing the little things and when we stopped doing all that, we stopped doing the big things.

I think about my life and all the good things in it. The good things happened with friends like you. I’m sorry for letting that slip away. They say friends are people in life who make you laugh louder, smile brighter and live better. It's true. When I look back through the yearbooks and old pictures, I can’t help but smile. It fills my heart with joy. But at the same time, my heart also aches. There’s something odd about looking at old pictures of old friends. You know, the picture where you all have your arms around each other, smiling and laughing, and at that moment thinking, "These are my best friends and nothing will ever change that." Thinking, "Life is good with these people and I can’t imagine spending or sharing it with anyone else; we’re going to be friends forever." But then years pass and you lose touch. Now holding this old picture, you can’t even imagine putting your arms around them and looking like you did in that picture because you don’t even know what they’re doing or where they are.

It’s crazy to me to think how life can just happen and how things can change like that. With college coming to an end, I’ve come to realize that we don’t say how much we miss or how much we love our friends. Friends make life better. My heart aches because I miss them. I miss spending time with them. I just miss them and who they are. The kind of people they are. I miss who I am when I was with them.

I just don’t think we say it enough. I love you. Love doesn’t have to be this gigantic thing. I think love is being there for someone, being a friend. Trusting them and confiding in them. I think that’s love.

This letter is not to say that you are no longer my friend. This is actually the complete opposite. This is to say that you are my friend. You were back then, you still are now, and you always will be. No time or distance can ever change that. This is me saying I’m sorry for letting life “happen” and “getting in the way” because life wouldn’t be life without you. This is to say that I miss you and I love you. And I thank you for being my friend.

With all my heart,

Lex