The time between phone calls to my mother and long time, long distance friends has continued to grow. During times of crises (both mine and theirs), we spoke more frequently. Fortunately, all of those crises have passed.
Now we don’t have much to talk about. We have all settled into our comfortable routines and lives. Our interactions with people we see everyday are more important to us than catching up by phone with each other.
This, I think, is completely appropriate.
Instead of checking in weekly with each other, we now check in once every 2 or 3 weeks. In time, I expect that will drop to a few times a year.
After all, none of us are that interested in each other’s local weather, neighbors we never met, or books/shows/podcasts the others are consuming.
I’m not sad about it. I don’t think they are either. We don’t have much in common anymore, other than a shared history.
Our lives are interesting – but only to ourselves.
It is challenging to make conversation lately – especially with my mother, but also with my friends. My mother doesn’t do much at all so she doesn’t have much to talk about.
My friends, on the other hand, have full lives like I do. When we talk, we have life anecdotes to share, opinions on current events or even occasionally have deeper philosophical discussions.
Before my wife died, I would speak to my mother once a week, on a regular schedule. She was working part time and watching her grandson several days a week so there was enough content to fill a weekly call. She seemed to look forward to our regular calls.
Back then, I would see in touch with my friends every few months. That was sufficient for all of us.
And so, I think we’re back to doing that.
Which is good for all of us.