This piece really spoke to me, and as recently as 2 weeks ago. My bestie (other friends) and I are just in very different phases of life. She had been busy raising a family and I had far more time on my hands. I had understood, of cos. But still I resented that I had 'lost' a cherished long time friend, I knew in my head, that it's entirely legit that she is busy. And she had felt she had nothing to contribute to our friendship since her stories are all about babies and kids. But after looking around for substitutes and other activities - actually found no one/anything that has any semblance of what we had. So I decided to just call her and just made that reconnection again. I had accepted that 10 mins of her time daily far outweighs 10 hours of someone I don't connect with or have no fond history with.
This doesn't just apply to friendships I realise. Because building and maintaining relationships takes actual work. I mean you both have to want to. And you have to have tradeoffs. You can't be rigid, and you can't get all your needs met... But what I learned, is this agreement to still call and leave messages, text back and forth. We had to try different modes and different ways. Previously I also got really upset when I finally got hold of the person, and start off with angry accusations. This too didn't work, because he would get pissed because I was pissed. We still don't have it pat-down (friends/relationships) but my changed perspective did help, especially for me.
https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/relationships/friendship-maintaining-healthy-relationships-text-calls-memes-5e66e221?st=2jl247gjqb814wr&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email