Confession #1: I get by with A LOT of help from my friends

I have been a bad friend over the years.  I hold a lot of guilt about friendships that have dwindled over time.  Whether it be by distance, a fight, the 17 addresses I have had since living at home with my parents, time, life changes, them, me...and everything in between.  If you have at one time been my friend and I have hurt you in some way, I want to make a global apology.  I had no intention of disconnecting from you even if we may have not always seen eye to eye.  Maybe we could have worked through it.  It's definitely not too late to try.   

I have to admit to an "experiment" that over the years has resulted in the disconnection of several relationships I had with college friends.  I stopped calling.  I just decided that at that time I may have been caring more about keeping the relationship going when we were drifting apart.  I harbored some hurt and jealousy when I observed others staying close while I was drifting further away.    

Maybe this is the natural progression in some relationships.  As in life, relationships have a birth, infancy, toddler stage, youth, adolescence, adulthood and death.  With some relationships it is easier to persevere through the thick and the thin.  Through changes and stages.

I am still mystified by what make some relationships last a lifetime and others are just fleeting because of a life stage, a convenience, a trauma...

I have to say that all of the people that I have encountered in my life have made me who I am; have had an effect on me; have carried me through or put me down...but I would change one thing....closing myself off from people...not allowing them to be a part of things.

Why did I do that?  I think a part of it has to do with folding inward so to speak.  A coping mechanism, an act of self-defense.  Maybe it all has to do with that.

Nate and I have very different opinions about the place of Facebook in our lives.  I can see how much of what Facebook is is ego-driven; how many friends to obtain, who is doing what, who "likes" what I have done or said, who commented on my status, who posted a comment on my pictures.... 

I want to hit the restart button on the purpose for a blog or a Facebook page or what may have caused a rift in some of my friendships.  I want to move forward from harboring the guilt of what I may have done to lose touch.  I forgive those who have intentionally lost touch with me.  Now it's time to move on.

Thank you friends.